Code Lyoko: Lost Episodes
by tyty7894
Summary: Takes place after season 4. A grouping of different episodes post-season 4. Each episode is marked by its chapter name, but episodes can consist of many chapters. Updating every-other day. Current number of episodes: 7 (working on 7)
1. Episode 1: Finals-Ch 1 Early Bird

Episode 1: "Finals"

I'M BACK, man I missed this place. It's been like, what, 2 years? It's about time I got back here. I may continue to work on a revised version of "Code: Rooftop" if I get enough support for it, so PM me if you want to see that. This is just a revised version of a story I wrote and published years ago to let y'all know I'm back! Enjoy!

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*.

Odd groans as he slowly awakes from a deep slumber. He is slightly agitated as he was just abruptly taken out of an amazing dream, a world with no homework and free food.

"Ulrich, hit the alarm clock, will ya?", Odd said in a half yell, half asleep voice.

Ulrich groaned as he sat up in his bed, still in a groggy state. "Someone must not have slept well last night", Ulrich said, slowly moving his hand towards the snooze button until he heard a faint *click* and the beeping stopped, echoing one final time against the walls of their dorm room.

Odd, having finally gained the strength to force his tired eyes open, began to speak. "I actually had this amazing dream! It started in Ms. Hertz class..."

Odd was cut off by Ulrich's phone vibrating against the wood of their dresser. "Hello?" Ulrich asked as he answered the phone.

"Ulrich!", Jeremy, the person on the other line, said, "Where are you guys? Classes start in 15 minutes and we have finals today!"

'Crap', Ulrich thought, remembering that class finals were today and he completely forgot to study. "Yeah, yeah, I know Jeremie. Odd and I were just getting some last minute studying in." Ulrich lied, doing so to avoid Jeremy's normal lectures on how they needed to improve their study habits and how they were lazy when it came to their studies. Ulrich was too tired to deal with that now. He began to think about what he and Odd did last night instead of studying, play video games, listen to new music Odd had downloaded and even reminisce about the good old days fighting X.A.N.A.

"Ok, Ulrich,", Jeremy said, waking Ulrich up from his thoughts, "I guess I'll just see you in math. Don't be late, you know how mad Mrs. Meyer got last week when you and Odd came in thirty minutes late to here class and said you thought all clocks went back a half-hour that day."

"I know Jeremy, you don't have to remind me." Ulrich turned around to face Odd, only to see him having fallen back asleep. "I have to go Jeremy, Odd is yelling at me to get off the phone so we can get to class." Ulrich thought about what he had just said, and he instantly regretted it.

"Odd begging to go to class? I may not have much common sense, but I know Odd would never say that. You didn't study for the test, did you?" Jeremy said with a slightly disappointed tone.

"See ya in class Einstein!" Ulrich stated loudly as he hung up on his genius friend. Ulrich peered over to the red shining light that his alarm was emitting, only to see that he had eight minutes before class started

"Odd, get up!" Odd was unresponsive. "Odd! Odd we have finals today, get up!" Ulrich was beginning to become impatient.

"Five more minuets mom." Odd said reflexively, totally unaware what was at , having given up on talking to Odd, moved over to Odd's bed.

"This is for your own good." Ulrich uttered as he flipped the small mattress on its side causing Odd to roll into the floor with a slight *thud*.

"OWWWWW!" Odd more murmured than yelled, still not being able to get out of his tired state.

"Odd, we don't have time for this today, now put your clothes on or I'll drag you to class in your underwear." Ulrich spat at Odd, putting a true sense of seriousness in the air while also giving humor to the situation.

"Fine, fine. I'm up.", Odd said, "What are you yelling about?"

"Finals Odd, now get dressed, we have to hurry or we won't make it."

"UGGGHHH!", Odd groaned, "Just go on without me, I'll catch up to you before class starts."

"Alright, but don't fall asleep again." Ulrich said having already gotten dressed. Today he chose to wear a dark shaded green pair of cargo shorts, a black shirt with a grey jacket and black and silver tennis shoes with a strange color pattern on them. His mother had sent him those shoes a few weeks ago, and although he hated them at first, they have started to grow on him.

As Ulrich walked out of his dorm, the hallway appeared as though it was a ghost town. Ulrich knew that this was a bad sign, so he began to run down the hallway, hoping to get to class with a couple minutes to spare so he could ask Jeremy for some help. As Ulrich ran out of the building he was met with a similar scene out here as he had seen in the hallway.

'This is bad', Ulrich thought to himself, 'this is really, really bad. My dad will kill me if I fail a class because I was late for finals'. Ulrich runs even faster towards the Math Building with his new found fear and motivation.

As he reached the door to Mrs. Meyer class he sighed with relief as he walked into the classroom, only to be met with a similar sigh of relief from Jeremy who apparently had been worried about him making it on schedule.

"Ulrich,", Jeremy said in a relived voice, "you almost didn't make it."

"I realize that Jeremy. How long do we have until class starts anyway?"

"About 2 minutes.", Jeremy answered, "Where's Odd?"

"Probably asleep back in out room dreaming about food or girls or something." Ulrich answered almost sounding as though he didn't care very much. "And speaking of people missing, where's Aelita?"

Jeremy pushed his glasses up from where they had fallen over time and answered, "She has the flu. She'll retake the finals when she gets better. Although if Odd is late I doubt he will be so lucky, you have to have a pass to take the test on retest day."

"Well, let's hope he makes it here on time.", Ulrich answered, looking up at the wall clock.

Tell me what you think! I wrote this at 2 in the morning so forgive and grammar errors. Chapter 2 will be coming out shortly.


	2. An Odd Fate

"Crap, crap, crap!" Odd yelled frantically as he bolted to the Math Building. "Come on legs, don't fail me now!" Odd uttered, almost as though his legs would respond to this with a burst of strength.

As Odd entered the Math Building, he ran up the stares to the second floor as though they were as level as the ground he had previously been running on. As the door to Mrs. Meyer class came into Odd's view he was hit with a rush of energy much like a runner who sees the finish line for the big race.

*DONG* *DONG* *DONG*.

A sense of darkness fell over Odd as though the Sun had just been flipped off. Odd's body just froze in place, he knew what this meant. Unable to accept his loss in this battle, Odd ran for the door only to find that it was locked. He knocked on the door as though he were merely a normal student coming to ask the teacher a question or deliver something from another teacher.

"Hey Ulrich,", Jeremy stated, sounding very surprised at the figure in the doorway, "isn't that Odd?"

Ulrich peered towards the door just as Odd began knocking on the apparently locked door. "Yeah, it is." Ulrich's voice sounded almost hopeless as he knew the bell had rung about 30 seconds ago.

Mrs. Meyer walked over to her door upon hearing the knocking. She had been in a very good mood this morning, but that was about to change. As she opened the door, Odd put on the most innocent face he could make. It was a great face too, had someone not known him they may believe just about anything he said with this mask of a face he wore.

"Mr. Della Robbia, what a surprise. I see you decided to sleep in instead of come to my class." Mrs. Meyer's words were almost like a challenge to Odd, forcing him to come up with an excuse to allow him to take this test.

"Mrs. Meyer, might I say, you are looking very beautiful this morning." Odd said with a wide grin on his face. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I had to help Jim move some stuff in the Gym this morning and it took longer than we thought it would."

"Then explain your hair." She replied, already knowing Odd was lying, but was interested in seeing how long Odd could keep this up.

"I... Uh, Jim and I had to move one of those industrial size fans and he accidental turned it on while we were moving it. I would have fixed my hair, but I was low on time and knew I had to make it to your class." Odd's extreme flatteries wouldn't work here, maybe in the lunchroom, but not here.

"Mr. Della Robbia, I appreciate your efforts, but I'm not going to let you take the test. You know the rules, no late students can take the test without a note from another teacher. And I doubt Jim would go along with you on this one, especially considering that he goes on vacation during the week of finals." Upon hearing this, Odd knew he was done for. This was the end, he and his unmotivated legs had lost this race. Now it was time to beg, something Odd did more often than he would like to admit. "Please, please, please! I need to take this test or I won't pass your class, I'll have to repeat the grade!" Odd persisted with his begging for almost three minutes before Mrs. Meyer finally put an end to it.

"Odd, I'm sorry, but rules are rules. You are going to have to leave so I can administer the test."

"Just let him take the test." A voice said from behind Mrs. Meyer.

"Who said that?" She asked. Her question was answered as she turned to see Ulrich standing out of his seat.

"Ulrich, I'm sorry, but your friend can't take this test. Now sit down."

Ulrich didn't know what was coming over him. He felt like he needed to try to help Odd. They all knew how bad it would be if Odd was held back, they wouldn't have any classes together. But what Ulrich felt, it wasn't just a feeling of needing to help his friend, it was a strong sense of loyalty and brotherhood. He couldn't just watch as Odd was sentenced to this fate.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but I can't just let Odd fail."

"Ulrich, sit down before I have to punish you for this." Mrs. Meyer was beginning to become impatient. "Odd, leave."

"Oh, come on Mrs. Meyer, please. I'll help clean up your chalkboard for the rest of my life, just please let me take this test!" Odd already knew that wouldn't work, but said it anyway.

"He would probably just fail it anyway." Everyone turned to Sissi Delmas, being her usual degrading and hateful self. "Why even bother giving him the test, he won't pass, we all know it."

Ulrich felt a sudden burst of anger overcome him. "Shut up Sissi!"

Sissi was appalled by Ulrich's words, almost seeing it as a personal attack on her.

"It's true, we all know it. Little pee brain over there couldn't pass an exam to save his life, let alone finals like this." Mrs. Meyer was about to speak but was cut off by Ulrich.

"I said shut up Sissi!" He didn't know what was coming over him, he had always hated Sissi, but right now he felt anger, not directed at her or anyone else, but at the situation.

"All of you to the principal's office immediately!" Mrs, Meyer yelled, finally able to stop the argument. "I want you out of my classroom now!"

"But I didn't do anything!" Sissi argued.

"Delmas, Stern, Della Robbia, to the principal's office, NOW!"

All three children knew that this was serious. Mrs. Meyer rarely yelled, they knew they had set her off.

They all slowly left the room, other than Odd who was never really in the room to begin with. As they reached the hall the door behind then was closed by a very impatient and angry Mrs. Meyer.

Next stop, the office.

Follow and review, that's the fuel for these stories.

Things I did while writing this: sat in a car on a trip headed back home from vacation. Listened to rock music. Read other fan fiction, all very good.


	3. Ulrich's Misfortune

"Dang Ulrich," Odd stated as he walked with Sissi and Ulrich down the stairs he had minutes earlier traversed with excellent form, "you didn't have to do that ya know. I appreciate it, but now we are both gonna fail."

"Be quiet you idiot!" Sissi hissed towards Odd. "It's your fault we are all in trouble!"

Odd was about to argue agains her until he noticed a hand motion from Ulrich, which Odd guessed meant to let it go. A crisp spring breeze welcomed them as they walked out the doors of the Math Building.

"My daddy won't punish me when I explain what happened, in fact I think I will just try to make your punishment worse Odd, since it is your fault."

"You know what Sissi!" Odd was unable to hold that back, he had heard enough from her today.

"Let's just be quiet until we get there, okay?" Ulrich asked, becoming the voice of reason for the group. They all needed some time to cool down it seemed, but Ulrich was unable to think of a reason as to why they were so mad at each other. Sissi had been a brat like this dozens of times, but Odd has never gone off on her like that before.

His thoughts were interrupted as he blindly walked into the doors leading to the Admin Building. Sissi giggled, but refrained from making any of her usual rude and unwelcome comments.

Ulrich could feel his body tense up as they reached the principal's office door. He was about to receive a punishment that would affect his life greatly in the coming days.

—

"I hope they didn't get into too much trouble." Jeremy was talking to Yumi who had just entered campus as her first final wasn't until about nine.

"Why do you think Ulrich was that intense?" Yumi asked, still perplexed by her friend's actions.

"I don't know, but things got really crazy for a minute between him and Sissi." Jeremy began mentally going over the events of that event. He just couldn't figure out how it escalated so quickly.

"Look!" Yumi said in a slightly anxious voice, "It's Odd and Ulrich!"

Ulrich walked with his head hanging low, knowing he would have to break the news to his friends. 'How could my dad make a decision like this without even considering how I feel about it? Oh, wait, I know why, it's because all he cares about are my grades and my future.'

When Ulrich and Odd reached the others they were met with sympathetic smiles. This didn't help cheer Ulrich up any.

"So, what happened?" Yumi asked, breaking a silence that was about to impose itself among the group.

Odd reluctantly answered first, knowing Ulrich didn't want to say anything yet. "I am going to have to stay this summer and retake the class."

"That's it?" Jeremy asked, curious as to how limited Odd's punishment really was.

"Yeah..." Odd still had a dark look in his face as his eyes moved to look at Ulrich.

"So, Ulrich, what happened to you?" Yumi had no idea that her asking would anger him.

"It really doesn't matter." Ulrich said in a harsh tone as he turned around and began to walk away.

Yumi began to walk towards Ulrich, but Odd lightly grabbed her arm, bringing her to a halt.

"I'll explain." Odd said, beginning to try to find where to start. "When we were in Headmaster Delmas's office, he gave the normal speech on respecting our teachers and being on time and how because we missed the test we would fail and have to go to summer school. We thought we were lucky to get off easy like that, until Mr. Delmas mentioned that he had informed our parents of what had happened. Ulrich's dad had told Mr. Delmas to have Ulrich call him whenever he came down. I don't know what they said in the call because I was already sent out of the office, but what Ulrich's dad did won't be easy to deal with."

"What did his dad say?" Yumi was anxious and nervous, unnoticeably shaking slightly.

"His dad is sending him to a military school to 'fix his attitude'." There was an instant reaction from Jeremy and Yumi, unsure how to take the news.

"When is he leaving?" Yumi asked, trying to seem much less upset than she was.

"He leaves in a week."

—

"He's leaving in about a week." Jeremy had just finished explaining the situation to Aelita. Her room was dark and cold as she had closed the blinds to keep the sun out, allowing her to sleep.

"This it terrible," Aelita said with a truly sad tone, aided by her illness slightly taking away her voice.

"I know, and I haven't seen Ulrich since he walked out on us in the courtyard."

"Well, just give him time. This is a big..."

*BING*

Silence fell in the room as Jeremy's laptop ringed.

*BING*

They both knew what that meant, but couldn't believe it true.

—

Ulrich was in his and Odd's room hitting a ball from his hand to the ceiling and then started over again. He had been lying in his bed for the last hour, hoping that this was just a bad dream, they he would wake up and find Odd snoring across the room.

*Buzz* *Buzz*

He felt his phone vibrate next to him, it was Jeremy. He didn't feel like talking and quickly hung up.

*Buzz* *Buzz*

Again, the genius called him. "I'm not gonna talk right now Jeremy." Ulrich said out loud as he turned his phone off.

It had not even been a minute before Ulrich had the silence he so desired broken by a knocking on his door.

"I'm not in the mood right now, go away!" Ulrich shouted towards whoever it was knocking on his door.

The knocking stopped, allowing Ulrich to get back to what he was doing.

*CRACK*

Ulrich turned his head towards his door, seeing wooden pieces go flying as a fist was visible in the gaping hole in his door.

"What tha..."

I decided to kinda alter my view on this chapter, having to re-write it about twice. I hope you enjoy where I'm taking this, but please review with any ideas or thoughts you have towards the story, thanks!


	4. No Rest for the Weary

"What tha..." Ulrich gazed in astonishment at the arm that had just broken its way through his door. It only took the figure behind his door mere seconds to rip the rest of the door off its hinges.

Standing in front of Ulrich was a man dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, resembling a special agent of sorts. The symbol of X.A.N.A. was clearly present in the mans eyes, confirming Ulrich's fear.

The specter charged at Ulrich with an exceptional speed and strength. Ulrich dodged the initial attack by jumping over to his bed. He swiftly grabbed his sword that was hanging on his bedroom wall and got into a defensive stance. The specter ran at him again only to be hit by Ulrich's sword, causing it to phase in and out of shape. Ulrich took this opportunity to run out of his room and head down the hallway.

As he made his way down the hall outside his room, he saw Odd running towards him.

"Ulrich, Jeremy said..."

"X.A.N.A.'s back and has activated a tower, I know. I just fought the specter in our room."

"Then let's move before he comes back." Odd said, Ulrich already beginning to run down the hall.

"Odd, how did this happen? We killed X.A.N.A. months ago, how did he survive?" Ulrich asked as they dashed down the dormitory stairs to the building exit.

"I don't know, Jeremy said he thinks X.A.N.A. could have survived on a non-internet source, like a LAN line or something."

Ulrich and Odd burst out of the doors, the specter having jumped down the stairway in one leap just behind them.

"Odd, run. I'll hold him off." Ulrich once again got into a defensive stance.

"Good luck man." Odd said as he ran towards the forest.

"Come on Mr. Specter, let's see what you got!" Ulrich yelled this with a nice helping of sarcasm, but just a hint of seriousness. He was well prepared to protect himself with his sword. He had taken lessons a few years ago on certain techniques and movements, giving him a sense of security in using it.

The specter ran at Ulrich so fast he could hardly see its movements. With one swift movement it knocked the sword clean out of Ulrich's hands and across the ground.

"Wow X.A.N.A., you've gotten pretty tough." Ulrich said this with a certain swagger in his voice, some would call it cockiness, but Ulrich knew that inside, he was greatly afraid.

—

Odd exited the elevator to see Jeremy on the supercomputer, just finishing materializing Aelita. Jeremy had been mostly relaxed since they defeated X.A.N.A., taking time to do things he enjoined and hanging out with Aelita. Odd figured they were dating but that Einstein was to nervous to tell the others yet.

"Ok Odd, go ahead and go down, I think X.A.N.A. sent a specter out directly though the supercomputer."

"I know, Ulrich's holding it off back at campus right now."

"Then we have no time to lose."

Odd hit the large red button sending the elevator down one more level. When the doors opened he walked into the middle scanner, the one on his left already having been taken by Aelita.

"Never thought I would be doing this again." Odd said, thinking of old times.

The doors to his scanner closed as Jeremy began his usual 'countdown'.

"Scanner Odd."  
"Transfer Odd."  
"Virtualization."

Odd's mind was sent through the scanners usual process until he was deposited in the Ice Sector, finding Aelita there waiting for him.

"It feels like it's been forever since we've been to Lyoko!" Odd stated, "It feels great!"

"Ok guys," Jeremy said through his microphone, his voice could be heard throughout the sector as though he was God in Heaven speaking to his people below, "the tower is just up ahead of you. I haven't seen any monsters on my monitor, but I doubt X.A.N.A. will let us off that easy."

Jeremy looked at the time on the monitor, noticing that Yumi would be finished with her finals. He pulled up her number that he had programmed into the supercomputer and dialed it.

*Ring* *Ring*

"Come on Yumi, pick up. Pick up."

*Ring* *Ring*

"Hello?" Yumi answered, just now exiting the Science Building.

"Yumi, we have a situation. X.A.N.A. is back and has activated a tower. There's a specter somewhere on campus that Ulrich's dealing with. Odd and Aelita are already on Lyoko and are headed towards the tower."

"Ok Jeremy, " Yumi said, still in shock that the thing that had plagued their young lives for so long was back again, "I'll hurry to the factory."

"No, I think it would be best if you tried to help Ulrich. He may be having trouble with the specter somewhere on campus."

"Ok Jeremy, I'll try to find him."

Jeremy hit a button on the right side of his keyboard that ended the call. Immediately after he ended the call the computer began beeping. Jeremy looked at his monitor only to find that three blocks had appeared around the tower.

"Guys, I can see three blocks guarding the tower, keep an eye out."

—

Ulrich hid behind a bush small bush in the forest. It was just big enough to conceal his body, but no bigger. His body was depleted as he had to sprint for what felt like forever to escape from X.A.N.A.'s specter.

Ulrich felt around in his pockets for his phone, but no luck. 'Dang,' Ulrich thought, 'I just had to forget my phone back in my room.'

Ulrich's thoughts were interrupted by a rustling noise coming from in front of him. He moved his head up just enough to allow him to see what was ahead of him. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared in his vision. 'I wonder what made that noise...' Ulrich thought, considering that it may have just been a bird or something.

He began to lower his head when he was hit with a sharp pain in his side and slid across the ground. His body cringed and he felt like some of his ribs may be broken. As he turned his head to see what had happened, he was hit with another burst of pain as the specter flung him into a nearby tree.

Ulrich was now in a great amount of pain. All he was able to do was sit up agains the tree he had just been violently volleyed into. His vision was blurry and unclear due to the amount of pain surging though him. As he looked up he say the specter with its fist ready to pound into his head. Ulrich closed his eyes, accepting his defeat as he no longer had the strength to fight back.

"Hey X.A.N.A.!" Yelled a female voice. Ulrich instantly recognized that voice. As he peered over towards where he heard her voice, he witnessed Yumi jump kick the specter square in the face. It fell to the ground, temporarily paralyzed.

"Ulrich, are you ok?" Yumi asked, her voice filled with concern.

"I'm fine, but we need to get to the factory to help Odd and Aelita."

"Come on, I'll help you walk." Yumi helped Ulrich up. She pulled up just a bit to hard causing there faces to be just inches apart. They both stared into each others eyes for a couple of seconds before they both blushed and began walking towards the factory.

—

Aelita and Odd had been making their way closer and closer to the activated tower for the last few minutes. The monsters seemed to be much smarter and stronger than before, making them difficult to destroy. Odd had already destroyed one of the three cubes while doing a stylish Aileron Role in mid air. The other two cubes were protecting the tower with a strange yet very tactical formation, one behind the other as they moved left to right and both fired at the same time, making a consistent amount of firepower while always having a moving target.

"Odd!" Aelita yelled, "use your claws to climb under them and surprise them from behind while I fly above to destruct them."

"Good plan Princess!" Odd began to do his part while Aelita activated her wings and flew above the two blocks. Both blocks instantly notice of Aelita, showing just how much better their reflexes had become. The air was then filled with laser fire from the duo of blocks. Aelita had many close calls, hardly finding time to fire back at them with her signature pink balls of energy that her hands so gracefully generated.

Odd was having trouble on his end as well. Due to him not having been to Lyoko in a while, he had lost some of his agile movement skills. One of his two hands would often slip as he clawed his way across the bottom of the flat sheet of floating ice. When he finally reached the end of the sheet he jumped up and took aim, destroying one block with just one arrow from his wrist. At that same moment, the other cube hit Aelita, causing her to lose control and begin falling.

"Aelita!" Odd yelled as he ran to catch her. He reached out his arms from the edge of the platform hovering over the digital sea, catching Aelita who fell just short of the ice sheet.

"Princess, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Odd. Thank you." Aelita said this with a slight smile.

"Ok, now go deactivate the tower, I'll take out the cube."

Aelita ran towards the activated tower just as Ulrich and Yumi made their way out of the elevator to where Jeremy was watching everything on his monitor. The specter called the elevator back up and shocked the code pad causing the elevator to descend.

Odd jumped over the cube and took aim for it's top eye. Odd was taken aback when he saw the cube shoot a continuous beam of energy out of its top eye, headed straight for him. He took the shot, destroying the cube at the very moment he was devirtualized by the cube's strangely powerful beam.

The specter walked out of the elevator when it stopped at the lab. It began to charge up the electricity in its hands, aiming it at Ulrich and Yumi. They both clung to each other in fear for their lives.

Aelita walked into the tower with a slight gasp on impact with the tangible entrance. As she walked into the center of the tower she was levitated up to the second platform in the tower. A flat holographic terminal appeared in front of her. She pressed her hand on the terminal, something she hoped she would never have to do again after they "killed" X.A.N.A. the first time.

"Aelita" displayed on the terminal after she released her hand. "Code Lyoko".

The specter screamed in a low pitched voice as its shape faded into a ghost like state. It then appeared to almost dissolve in the air. Jeremy then typed a code into his keyboard.

"Return to the past now!"

—

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

Ulrich instantly slammed down on the snooze button and got out of bed.

"Get up Odd, you don't want to be late for finals again, do you?"

"Fine." Odd said, still reluctant to get up.

The two teens both got dressed, took showers and got some last minute studying in before they rushed off to class.

"I can't believe you made me miss breakfast to help you study, they were having chocolate chip pancakes today!" Odd complained.

"Get over it Odd, you can eat after the test."

Both of them walked into class with minutes to spare. They proceeded to take their tests, Odd asking Jeremy for answers more than once, but never getting him to budge. After all of the gang finished their tests they met at the factory to discuss X.A.N.A.

—

"How did he survive?" Yumi asked. "I thought we completely got rid of him a couple months ago."

"Well, so did I," Jeremy answered, "but somehow he survived. And from what everyone has said, he seems stronger than ever before."

"This is gonna be a major challenge, dealing with X.A.N.A. again." Aelita stated. You could feel the worry in her voice as though it was right in front of you. And for the Lyoko warriors, it was. They were all at least a little afraid of what might happen now, a stronger X.A.N.A., no way to kill him at the moment.

"This will be a challenge," Ulrich said, breaking an almost minute long silence, "but we have dealt with this before. We have all had to give our all in the past to fight against X.A.N.A., nothing has changed. We will continue to give our all, to fight harder than ever before, because out there are the people we care about. We do this for them, never forget that. We are all that stands between the ones we love and destruction, and we will stand against our enemy through it all. Nothing has changed, and I know we can do this."

The room was silent, almost caught off guard by what had just been said. They all felt better after that, as though Ulrich had directly injected a heavy dose of motivation into their bodies.

Everyone looked at each other, and after a moment of pause, they all came in for a group hug. The Lyoko Warriors were back in action and ready to face whatever X.A.N.A. Had to throw at them in the coming days.

Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate it. I had to work all night to get this just right, and it's more than twice as long as any other chapter! (I felt like you guys deserved something special for supporting my by reading my work (: ) So, this is where you, the reader come in. This series will consist of multiple episodes, almost like it is the TV series. So I want your opinion, would you rather I put out parts of an episode out at a time, maybe one every other day, or would you rather I write the whole episode and post it whole? Please answer with a review, thanks!


	5. Ep 2: Special Delivery-Ch 1 Seconds

Episode 2: "Special Delivery"

Aelita sat quietly at the gang's usual table in the lunchroom. It was early for anyone to be there breakfast just started. Aelita was unable to sleep last night, nightmares dominating her mind. She hadn't had nightmares since the Warriors "killed" X.A.N.A. the first time, but now she was beginning to have them again. It had been a week since the specter attacked and X.A.N.A. has been quiet since, but Aelita was constantly thinking of her father. 'If X.A.N.A. survived, is it possible that my father survived too?' She thought many nights in between nightmares.

The silence was broken as Odd and Ulrich walked into the lunchroom, Odd yelling something about how he was starving and needed food now.

"Oh, Rosa," Odd said with a most charming smile, "shall I compare the to a flower bearing a similar name? You are more beautiful and and radiant than the sun, a true..."

"Please just give him extra food so he'll shut up."

"Thank you, Odd." Rosa said, dumping a double helping of hash browns on his plate, her cheeks flushed as she did so.

"Odd, what wouldn't you do for food?" Ulrich asked, already knowing the answer.

"I would do anything for food Ulrich."

"Like go out with Sissi?" Ulrich said, laughing hysterically,

"Some things are forbidden in all circumstances, and that's one of them." Odd said, joining in the laughter.

"Hello Ulrich dear," Sissi said in what Ulrich thought was the most annoying voice imaginable, "maybe you would like to sit with me today?"

"Sorry Sissi, but Odd and I have a lot to discuss, don't we Odd?"

"You're on your own here buddy." Odd said with a snicker.

"Come on Ulrich, let's go eat." Sissi violently grabbed Ulrich by the arm and dragged him off to a table in the back of the quickly filling cafeteria.

"What happened there?" Aelita asked Odd as he sat down across from her.

"Oh, nothing. Just a predator finally having caught it's pray." Aelita laughed for a second, taken aback by Odd's excellently placed joke.

"Where's Jeremy?" Aelita asked, wanting to talk to him about her nightmares and concerns about her father.

"He's back in his room working on his computer. He's back in his 'must kill X.A.N.A.' mode. I don't think he slept last night."

'That makes two of us' Aelita thought. "Thanks Odd, I think I'll go check up on him before classes start."

Aelita left Odd to devour his food alone and walked out the door. As she made her way to the boys dormitory she continued to think about her father.

—

*knock* *knock*

"Jeremy, you in there?"

"Come in." Jeremy answered. You could feel the tiredness in his voice.

Aelita walked into his room and closed the door behind her. Jeremy's face was illuminated by the bright monitor in front of him.

"Hey Aelita, what's up." Jeremy said this without even diverting his eyes from the screen.

"How's work going?"

"I just don't understand. X.A.N.A. was gone, without a trace for months, then all of a sudden he comes back. I just don't get it." The way Jeremy said this made Aelita think Jeremy was disappointed in himself, which honestly he was. It was his program that he used to kill X.A.N.A., and it didn't work. This mentally was a major blow to Jeremy, but he wouldn't let it show. He was good at keeping his feelings bottled up like that.

"Just relax Jeremy, we have dealt with X.A.N.A. before, we can fight again. Just take a break, maybe we can go see a movie after school. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah, it sounds great Aelita." Jeremy said, finally turning to face her with a smile. They both looked at each other for a few seconds before he turned to his computer monitor. "I think class is about to start, we should get going."

As Jeremy began to stand up out of his chair, Aelita moved in and kissed him on the cheek saying, "Relax Jeremy, we will get through this." With that, she walked out of the room and off to class.

Jeremy was left alone in his room, his body felt like jello from the kiss. After about 30 seconds of just standing there in romantic shock he too went off to class.

—

"Hey Ulrich," Odd spoke to Ulrich across their lab table in Ms. Hertz room, "what's the answer to question 5?"

"Be quiet Odd, Ms. Hertz will hear you." Ulrich replied.

"Come on man, I need some help. I have no idea what cell mitosis is or what that green stuff in called."

"Odd, is there something you would like to share with the class?" Ms. Hertz said, directing her gaze upon Odd as though her eyes were daggers piercing through him. He looked the part as well, showing surprise at having her call him out on his conversation.

"No Ma'am." Odd replied reluctantly, like a dog who had betrayed his/her master.

"Well, I do. It's your grade, Mr. Della Robbia. Any idea what it it?"

"A 100%?" Odd knew the correct answer, but at this point wanted to make something funny if not desperate out of this.

"If only you were that lucky Odd. For talking during one of my tests you will get a heaping plate of zeros, with a side order of detention." The class burst out laughing as Odd slouched in his chair.

"Everyone settle down and finish your tests." The class quickly regained it's previous composure and resumed taking their tests.

"Mr. Della Robbia, please hand me your test. For the rest of class you can copy definitions from the textbook. I want at least thirty words by the end of the period." Odd reluctantly got up, this took a tad bit of strength as he had fallen deep into his chair while Ms. Hertz was speaking, and handed her his test. Ulrich's expression upon Odd's return was a sympathetic one, not the 'I'm so sorry for you' type of sympathy, but the kind sympathy where you tell a friend they messed up and help them get back on their feet.

Over the next hour Odd copied everything from acid to asexual reproduction. He hoped that by working so diligently over the last hour and getting 37 words defined, 7 more than were asked of him at minimum, hoping he would catch a break on getting detention.

*Ring* *Ring*

As the bell rang signaling the end of this class period, the last of the day, all the students got up out of their seats, most going out in the hall discussing what they were going to do tonight, it being Saturday, while a small group stayed behind to discuss a few questions about the test with Ms. Hertz.

Odd moved swiftly to her desk, trying to be the first person to approach her.

"I finished the definitions Ms. Hertz, I know you told me to only do 30, but I decided to do just a few more." Odd could have easily fooled anyone who didn't know him well that he was a diligent worker who loved to please people, but Ms. Hertz had known Odd for what felt like too long to her, allowing her along with most of the other teachers to see past his phony personality.

"Thank you Odd, and for all the extra work you put in, I think you deserve this." She said smiling, handing Odd a small slip of paper.

Odd looked down at the paper which read: "Detention Slip. Student: ODD DELLA ROBBIA  
Teacher: SUZANNE HERTZ  
Time: 4:30 P.M. - 6:30 P.M."

"Aww man..." Odd left the room, turning back only to look at the clock hanging along the back wall. It read '3:45 P.M.'. He again groaned in dissatisfaction with his current situation.

"First a zero then I have to miss lunch, this is outrageous." Odd persisted to himself as he walked down the stairs and out of the Science Building.

Wow guys, a total of over 200 views in 4 days! You guys are amazing, so I made this chapter just a bit longer as a gift for your efforts. Please review about anything you liked it didn't like so far.


	6. Hand in Hand

Ulrich was walking out of the Science Building having just finished his last class of the day. He noticed Yumi standing just across the courtyard by a bench. 'Ok Ulrich, it's Saturday, no school tomorrow. Ask her on a date. Hmm... What if she says no? Will it be awkward? Will she think it's a joke? I'm confused...' Ulrich never was good at forcing himself to do things like this, usually causing awkward situation to occur. 'Come on Ulrich, be strong. Just walk up to her and ask her to go see a movie or something.

Ulrich began walking towards her, but as he was about ten feet away William walked over to Yumi.

"I got all the stuff ready for our history project. See ya tonight at the library?" William asked.

"Yeah, I'll see you there." Yumi said with a smile. William walked off and began chatting with someone else across the courtyard.

'Well,' Ulrich thought to himself, 'I guess I'll just have to ask her some other time.' He almost subconsciously tried to convince himself that he wasn't mad about the situation he found himself in, but his mind was full of anger towards William. Ulrich had never trusted him, even after they had had their moments working to together to fight X.A.N.A. A couple times, it didn't change much in Ulrich's mind.

Ulrich walked back to his room feeling like a beaten man, as though he was rejected without even having to ask. Ulrich knew this not to be true, but that thought couldn't escape it's cage, trapped by slightly over-emotional personality.

When he arrived at his room he plopped himself on his mattress and began to think, his thoughts quickly snowballing out of proportions. 'What if they're dating and she just hasn't told me?' 'That jerk William, always against me. What's wrong with him?'

Ulrich fell asleep, tired of thinking about all this. While he rested his head was full of anger and resentment, and not that of a short confrontation where all is better after the fighting is over, Ulrich saw this as a never ending struggle, a war. And being the general he was in that situation, he dreamt of ways to bring his enemy down, to win his war, even if he was the only one who saw it as one.

—

Aelita had finally finished getting ready for her date with Jeremy. She dawned a stylish pink T-shirt, blue jeans, her favorite pair of blue flip-flops and brought a jacket in case it was cold in the theatre. She only applied a thin layer of makeup, her natural beauty overcoming any makeup she could have purchased. Her hair was in its usual fashion, resembling an innocent pink ball of twine that had been laid down long ago, allowing it to slouch from a perfect sphere to a more fitting shape.

Aelita looked at her alarm clock noticing the time. '5:04, I should probably head over to Jeremy's room, the movie starts at 6:30.' She grabbed her small pink clutch and headed to the boy's dormitory.

Upon entering the building she noticed it was mostly void of life. Saturday nights and Sundays were the only days that boarding students were allowed to leave campus making them busy days on the kids schedules, leaving the majority of campus empty with the exception of a few people studying or doing projects.

Aelita reached Jeremy's door and gave it a couple of light knocks.

*Knock* *Knock*

Jeremy promptly opened the door. He was wearing a light blue shirt, the collar covering his lower neck, tan pants and what Aelita guessed was cologne. 'Nice touch Jeremy.' she thought, beginning to smile.

"Hey Princess," Jeremy said, smiling back, "you look beautiful tonight." Aelita's cheeks became a crimson red as she blushed.

"Thank you Jeremy, you look great too." Jeremy followed in suit, his cheeks reacting the same was as hers.

"Are you ready to go?" He asked, still slightly nervous, but more relaxed about it than he was earlier today.

"Yes, let's go." She replied. Jeremy frantically ran back in his room after he walked out in order to retrieve his laptop, outing it in his messengers bag and walking back out.

"Why do you have your laptop?" She asked, perplexed by Jeremy's actions.

"Just in case X.A.N.A. attacks while we are away." Aelita was a bit annoyed by this, but accepted it knowing that he was probably right.

They could be seen exiting campus on their way to the movie theatre, hand in hand.

—

"Aww man," Odd murmured to himself, sitting in the library for his detention, "this is SOOOO boring."

"Be quiet Della Robbia, I'm trying to read the funnies." Jim commanded, holding a newspaper in his hands.

"Oh, Jim, how was your vacation during finals?" Odd asked, not caring very much, but he couldn't stand the silence.

"It was good, I sailed my boat around Lac de Sainte-Croix."

"You sail?" Odd asked, actually interested at this point.

"Yes, I actually used to be in the Navy, but I'd rather not talk about it." Jim said, his normally straight face cracking at the mention of his Navy days.

"Well that's interesting."

"Thanks for asking Odd, " Jim seemed sincere in his thanks, smiling a bit after speaking that, "now silence, I'm trying to read."

Odd resumed doing what he had done to waste time for the last hour, drawing funny pictures on the table and listening to music, hidden in his jacket.

—

Location: Andrews Air Force Base  
Time: Apx. 1230 hours

An American drone takes off from a long, dark runway, headed to an American Military Base in Israel. Onboard it carries a 10 megaton nuclear bomb, planned to be used as a negotiations tool to stop a possible Syrian invasion.

"Sir!" Private Jackson said to his commanding officer, "We have an issue, the drone won't respond to our commands, and out monitors are all displaying a strange symbol."

"Call homeland security. See if they can take remote control from there location."

"Sir, they're the ones who called us, they said they fear a possible cyber attack is occurring."

"Trajectory heading on the drone?"

"Northern France, sir." Private Jackson said, his face looking very grim. "They also said they couldn't disable the payload, sir."

The Commanders eyes widened with fear. "My God." He said, taken aback by the situation. "Options?" He asked.

"Evacuation" was all the private could think to say.

Thanks for all the continuing support, new chapters every day/ maybe every other day if I don't have time. Please review with any thoughts you had. Thanks!


	7. Knocking at Our Door

Jeremy had been sitting in the hard plastic chair of the movie theatre for more than an hour. He wasn't sure what the title of the movie was, but it was a romantic comedy, so he wasn't very interested in it. His mind would occasionally drift off thinking of ways to try and defeat X.A.N.A., but for the most part he was greatly enjoying his time with Aelita.

He had asked her out only two weeks ago, but was planning on doing it ever since they beat X.A.N.A. the first time, but he didn't have the confidence to do it at first. When he finally asked her, she was overjoyed, having waited for him to ask for a very long time. They still haven't told the group yet because they wanted to break it to them in a special way.

"Jeremy, " Aelita asked, bringing the blond back down to earth and out of his thoughts, "what did you think of the movie?"

'The movie's already over!' He thought. 'I guess I have been out of it a while.'

"It was good, but being with you made it better." Jeremy said, his lips forming a soft smile.

"Aww, thanks Jeremy, that's sweet." Aelita replied forming a smile of her own.

The two lovebirds stared into each others eyes, almost as though they could read each others minds. Aelita moved a little bit closer to Jeremy, and he followed suit. After about twenty seconds of this their faces were mere inches apart. Aelita began to lean in, but before then a sudden noise caught them both off guard.

*Be-beem* *Be-beem*

They looked at each other in total silence, them again it came:

*Be-beem* *Be-beem*

"...X.A.N.A." Aelita said quietly, possibly out of not wanting others to hear her, but more likely out of a moment of fear. Whichever it was, it didn't last long as both were up in a flash, exiting the theatre as quickly as possible. Jeremy pulled out his phone to call the others and warn them of the attack. He unlocked his phone as quickly as possible, dialing Ulrich first. What he met on the other line wasn't Ulrich, but a recording saying that all lines were busy and to try again later.

"What's going on?" He said aloud.

"What is it Jeremy?" Aelita asked, unsure what to make of his outburst.

"It says the phone lines are all busy, I couldn't make it through to Ulrich. I'm going to check local news and see if they are saying anything about it."

"What if it's X.A.N.A.?" Aelita asked.

"I hadn't thought of that..." Jeremy paused for a moment. "If so, one of us will have to find the others."

"You go, I'll go ahead and send myself to Lyoko."

"Ok, "Jeremy replied with a faint smile, "stay safe."

"I will Jeremy." Aelita smiled as well before they went their separate ways, Jeremy to the school and Aelita to the factory.

Jeremy looked back, his eyes filled with worry for her. He knew she was strong, but cared so much about her, it would be devastating for anything to happen to her. He peered at her for only a mere moment, something so insignificant to any bystander, but to Jeremy, it was a way of voicing his desire to keep her safe. And with that he went back on his way, leaving the thought behind him, only later would it find him again.

—

Ulrich was fast asleep, his mind still steaming with rage against William. To him, William was untrustworthy and a hazard for the group, even if he has proved help to the gang on more than one occasion.

Ulrich's sleep was interrupted when Mr. Delmas came over the school wide intercom system. "I need all students to report to the 1st floor of the Science Building at once." You could feel the worry and concern in his voice. A *click* signified the end of his message. Ulrich shook his head to help him wake up, only having heard half of what had been announced.

'The Science Building, why are we meeting there?' He thought. Ulrich pushed himself off of his bed in one quick movement. As he walked out his door he was met with only a few students leaving the dorms. 'It's Saturday, a lot of people are probably out on the town.'

He made his way down the hall passing Herb and Nicholas who were discussing something about a thing Herb heard on the news through the radio in his room. Ulrich wasn't very concerned with this so he quickly walked by, not even giving it a thought. He walked at a brisk pace towards the Science Building, very curious as to what this was all about.

He reached the building in almost no time flat with his above average pace. What he was met with when he entered those doors was a sight of mass confusion. On the stairs leading to the second floor were Jim and Mr. Delmas, looking very concerned. In the main lobby were about 40 or so kids all discussing what they thought this was all about.

"Hey, Ulrich!" Ulrich turned to see Odd having just entered to doors. "Hey man, do you know what's going on?"

"No idea." Ulrich replied. "Do you think it could be..." He lowered his voice, "X.A.N.A.?"

"It wouldn't hurt to check with Einstein, try calling him."

Ulrich pulled out his phone quickly entering Jeremy's number. It stayed silent for about five seconds before an automated recording played stating that all lines were busy and for him to try again later.

"It said the line was busy." Ulrich said, sounding very annoyed by this problem.

"Settle down everyone!" Mr. Delmas yelled over all the noise the children were producing. "We have an emergency situation and I have been ordered to take us all to a safe location." The room instantly became quiet, half of the kids in fear, the other half taken aback with confusion and concern. "We will all be moving to the gym, now let's go!" With that command Jim motioned everyone to follow him out side as to the gym.

"This must be X.A.N.A." Odd whispered to Ulrich. "We need to get to the factory ASAP."

"Ok, " Ulrich said as they both walked back outside, "on my mark we run." They walked for another 30 or so seconds until Ulrich saw their chance to get away unnoticed.

"Ok, now." Both boys moved swiftly yet quietly behind a large tree where no one would see them. They waited for a minute to make sure nobody noticed them, then they proceeded to move towards the factory.

"Try calling Jeremy one more time, see if it gets through." Odd said, jumping over a fallen branch.

"Ok, I'll try again." Ulrich pulled out his phone and re-dialed Jeremy's number. "It's ringing!" He yelled, excited that he would finally get answered to what was happening.

"Hello?" A slightly confused Jeremy said on the other line.

"Jeremy, they're moving everyone at the school to a safe location, what's happening?"

"From what I've heard, X.A.N.A. has taken control of an American drone and is on his way to drop a nuclear bomb on the city." Jeremy delivered that so calmly that someone not paying attention probably wouldn't have even noticed what he had said.

"How long do we have?" Ulrich asked as he and Odd reached the sewer grate.

"I'm not sure, I should be able to track it once I get to the factory. Aelita should already be there on Lyoko. What about Yumi?"

In all the confusion Ulrich had forgotten about her. "I'm not sure, I think she was at the Library with William earlier, but I didn't see them when Delmas got all the students together."

"Well I'll try to call her, but I doubt I will have any luck." Jeremy replied.

"Ok Jeremy, keep us posted." Ulrich hung up the phone.

"So, what's happening? Is it X.A.N.A.?"

"Yeah, it is. He's planning to blow up the whole city with a nuclear bomb."

"What?!" Odd yelled out in shock. "X.A.N.A. has done some pretty crazy stuff in the past, but this?"

"Odd, something tells me it will only get harder from here."

—

Location: Andrews Air Force Base

Time Till Impact: T - 15 minutes.

"Jackson!" The commander yelled, "What is our progress on disarming that bomb?" His voice had changed from fear earlier to anger.

"We can't do anything about it sir, half of our computers are infected with this... This thing, and the other half can't even get close to controlling the drone." The worry in his voice had faded, he knew his job wouldn't get done any faster if he was busy worrying about this.

"I want that drone shut down now or that bomb disarmed or the French will be at our doorstep coming in guns-a-blazing." The commander put on his sunglasses, covering any details about his emotions from others view. "I'm not ready to fight a war over a stupid bug in the system."

*Ring* *Ring*

"Hello?" The commander said answering the large red phone attached to the wall. "Yes Mr. President, we are doing all we can..."

Hope you enjoyed, please leave a review of what you thought. Next chapter coming out either tomorrow or Wednesday.


	8. From the Darkness

Yumi and William had been working in the library for about an hour. They had made good progress, about half of their project being completed at this time. Yumi had thought it would take them at least twice as long as that, but she and William had worked diligently that night, a bit odd to her, but she was glad they had, her parents would be mad if she came home late tonight.

They had both been sitting in near silence for the last twenty minutes or so, both reading about their project topic: the spreading of nomads from Africa to the rest of the world.

William broke the silence, standing up as he spoke. "I know about the return to the past you guys did." Yumi was at a loss for words, not knowing what to think.

"I was scanned, remember? I'm not affected by the return to the pasts. I just want to know what's going on, and I plan to get answers." Williams face was one of determination, although some might see it as anger.

"Okay, William. About a week ago X.A.N.A. attacked. According to Jeremy he survived somehow, we didn't kill him the first time."  
William looked at her, raising a brow.

"So you decided not to let me know about this?" Yumi couldn't think of what to say at first, deciding just to be blunt with the truth.

"We didn't ever really think about it..." She said I a shallow voice.

"I did go to Lyoko, ya know. I fought X.A.N.A. just like all of you did. That whole thing where I was possessed by X.A.N.A., that wasn't me. I feel like I deserve a chance to, I don't know, prove myself to you?" To Yumi, Williams voice had never sounded so sincere before. What he had just said made her not only feel bad for him, but also be mad at herself for not thinking about him that way.

*Ring* *Ring* *Ring*

Yumi's arm moved quickly to answer he ringing phone. She looked at the caller ID: Jeremy.

"Hello, Jeremy?"

"Yeah, it worked this time Aelita, I got through!" Jeremy was overjoyed at this for reasons Yumi couldn't fully understand yet.

"What is it Jeremy?" She asked, a bit of annoyance in her voice. She had no reason to be annoyed at him, but from what William had said to her she has begun to be annoyed at herself.

"You need to come to the factory immediately, we have a huge problem. X.A.N.A. has taken control of an American drone and, well... let's just say it won't end well. According to my calculations based on distances and speed we have about 9 or 10 minutes before it arrives." Yumi handled this much better than the average person would, being used to X.A.N.A.'s insanely destructive plans in the past.

"Okay Jeremy, on my way now." Yumi hung up her phone only to see William cross armed, staring at her.

"So, you have to go and fight X.A.N.A. again? I would love to help out, but for some reason I'm not sure you guys trust me." William had never really shown this side to Yumi. He was almost longing to be accepted by them, surprising Yumi.

"It's really serious William. Just... Follow me, okay?"

"Great! Finally I can get my revenge on that jerk X.A.N.A." William's voice was full of excitement at the idea of being able to face X.A.N.A. again.

"Let's go, Jeremy said we don't have long."

"Don't have long before what?" William asked.

"Before we become a crater in the ground."

—

"Okay guys, we don't have long. Yumi will be here soon but you will need to go on without her."

"Okay, Jeremy." Aelita answered pressing the button sending the elevator down. As the doors slid open, they all stepped into the scanners, Odd complaining about missing dinner while doing so.

"Scanner Odd. Scanner Ulrich. Scanner Aelita.  
"Transfer Odd. Transfer Ulrich. Transfer Aelita.  
"Virtualization!"

Their minds zoomed through the cables of the scanners and were encoded into their virtual form. They all fell with a thud onto the ground of the desert sector.

"Okay, the tower should be due east of your location, but watch out, three tarantulas up ahead."

"Jeremy, how about some vehicles?" Ulrich asked.

"Sorry, but some files were lost when we shutdown the supercomputer, your vehicles being one of them. I'll reprogram them later, but for now you will just have to move on foot."

"You guys ready?" Odd asked, already starting of towards the tower.

"Wait Odd, we don't know how powerful these monsters are." Aelita said, concern and worry deeply rooted in her words.

"Don't worry Princess, we've handled them befo..." Odd was knocked to the ground by three consecutive laser shots.

"Odd, you okay?" Ulrich asked, confused by what had just happened.

"Yeah, but it just shot three shots at once." Odd turned towards the monsters, "That's a little over over powered don't ya think, X.A.N.A.?"

"I think that's what he was going for, Odd." Ulrich pointed out.

"Guys, we only have six minutes before the city is destroyed. No rush, but you may want to find a way to get rid of those monsters." Jeremy said through his headset.

"Odd, try climbing up that ridge and see if you can take any of them out from a distance, I'll try moving on them with my super sprint. Aelita, you can cover from the air, but be careful, this attack is pretty big." Ulrich's true leadership skills were brought out often through Lyoko and this was one of those times. Everyone got in position, and when Ulrich gave the signal, they moved on their targets.

"Odd, hit the one on the right!" Ulrich yelled from the middle of an open area to the left of the ridge Odd was perched on.

"Got it!" Odd yelled back taking multiple shots. The first three missed, but the forth and fifth hit dead center. The tarantula collapsed before exploding into loose code.

"Great job Odd." Jeremy complimented.

"Thanks Jer..." Odd was hit by another three round burst in his chest, devirtualizing him before he even hit the ground.

"Odd!" Aelita yelled in concern.

"Ok Princess, we need to focus our attention on the one in the middle, try to fly over it and distract it while I go in for the kill." At command Aelita moved over to the monster. It shot multiple bursts of lasers, first from its left side, then the right. Aelita masterfully dodged every shot as Ulrich used his supersprint to take the monster by surprise.

"Aahhh!" He yelled as his dual wield swords punctured the X.A.N.A. mark on the tarantula's head. Ulrich was blown back as the monster exploded into code, his swords moving far out of reach. As he dashed to get them, Ulrich was hit by all three lasers the tarantula had to give. He was devirtualized on the spot, not even seeing it coming.

"Ulrich!" Aelita jumped. She was all alone now, and even with her energy fields, she was no match for the monsters extreme strength and accuracy.

"Jeremy, what do I do?" She asked. Just as she finished asking Jeremy turned his head to see the elevator doors open.

"Yumi, get to the scanner quickly, Aelita is..." He paused as William entered his line of sight.

"I thought William could help out, so I brought him along." Yumi said, her voice awkward as she spoke.

"Well, both of you get to the scanners. Aelita is in trouble and the drone will be here in less than 3 minutes." With that they both headed down to the scanners.

"It's been a while since I've been in here, " William said, "but it's not like I came here that often anyway." William still seemed to Yumi like he was hurt, that he wanted to help the whole time but was never given a chance. She felt guilty for it, but her mindset changed as the scanner doors closed in front of her.

"Scanner Yumi. Scanner William."  
"Transfer Yumi. Transfer William."  
"Virtualization!"

Yumi and William fell to the ground right next to each other. They looked around them only to find Aelita in the sky dodging laser fire. The scene reminded Yumi of when her world history class watched a documentary on World War 2, the Anti-Air guns shooting down planes in the sky over Germany, Britain, France and many others.

Yumi looked over at William, his suit just as it was before he became possessed by X.A.N.A. He pulled his large sword into position and began to charge at the monster. His fury could be felt in the air, that is if Lyoko had any, and his speed was comparable to that of a predator chasing its pray.

"William, wait up!" Yumi yelled, beginning to run after him. Aelita was still dodging shots coming at her from the ground, her skills had kept her from being hit before now, but a persons luck could only last so long. As William got very close to the monster, it turned to face him, firing off six lasers, three from each arm. William used his super smoke ability to dodge them, although now his cloud of once black smoke was white with splashes of blue. As he came back up from the ground, he charged the monster, slicing it clean in half before it blew into bits and pieces of programming.

"Aelita, the coast is clear, you can deactivate the tower now. And hurry, we only have 30 seconds before the drone reaches us!" Jeremy was full of fear when he said this, his faith withering with every passing second.

Aelita sprinted into the tower, and due to her extreme speed she was in the middle of the tower almost immediately after entering.

The drone was now at its target. As it dropped to proper altitude, the clamps holding the nuclear device were released, causing it to free fall. Millions were seconds away from death.

Aelita was levitated up onto the second platform of the tower. As her hand pressed on the newly appearing terminal, the word "Aelita" appeared, followed by "Code Lyoko".

"Return to the past now!" Jeremy yelled. A white sphere grew from the supercomputer and over the factory, then the city, then the country, finally, the world. The bomb was stopped about five meters from the ground, milliseconds from detonation.

—

"I'm not exactly sure what to do about this guys, X.A.N.A.'s power is extreme and I'm not sure how long we can fight against that." Jeremy said, the gang all meeting at the factory.

"We could add someone else to the group." Yumi suggested.

"And who exactly would that be?" Ulrich asked

"William. He has helped us before and over all this time he has never told anyone about Lyoko or the factory. Plus, without him we may not have stopped X.A.N.A. last time."

"She has a point." Aelita said, sympathizing with Yumi.

"I don't trust him." Ulrich stated.

"Why?" Yumi asked. "What has he done to you?"

"I just don't think he can be trusted." Ulrich answered.

"Guys, why don't we just vote to see of we add him in, if at least four of us say yes, then he gets in, any less and he doesn't." Odd said.

"Good idea Odd." Jeremy said, pulling out some scrap paper and handing a small piece to everyone.

They all wrote their opinions in their paper, join or not. Once they were all finished Jeremy collected the papers and tallied the votes.

"Well, it's official." Jeremy said, the tension in the air building. "He's in."

Thanks for all the views and reviews, keep it up! Episode 3 will be out shortly!


	9. Ep 3 Saving Private Odd-Now You See Him

Episode three: "Saving Private Odd"

"Ok guys, head south of your position, there should be a long passageway that leads to the new terminal." Jeremy was directing the gang (now including William) through Sector 5.

"I can't wait to see the new terminal you programmed Jeremy." Aelita said, proud of Jeremy.

"If this works then all of you will be able to use the terminal in sector five instead of just Aelita." Jeremy looked over at the center monitor. "It should be just ahead."

"We see it Jeremy." William replied, taking his sword off his shoulder and placing it on the ground.

"Good, any volunteers?" Jeremy asked.

"I'll try it out!" Odd said, excitement in his voice.

"Ok Odd, just place your hand on the terminal and we'll see if it works." Jeremy couldn't hold in the excitement he felt for this. If this worked he would use it to program the towers so anyone could deactivate them, making their lives easier.

Odd moved over to the terminal with a brisk pace. His arm stretched out as he reached the terminal, his hand placed in the center. After a couple seconds the terminal came to life, displaying random information that no one except Aelita and Jeremy could understand. "It worked, Jeremy." Odd said, glad to see it working.

"That's great! Now, who's next?" Jeremy asked, a his newly formed smile covering the majority of his lower face.

"I'll go next..." Ulrich was interrupted by a group of six mantis swarming them.

"Jeremy!" Yumi yelled, "Where's the heads up?"

"They just showed up on my screen, I couldn't see them earlier."

"We need vehicles Jeremy." Odd pointed out, retracting his hand from the terminal.

"Should be there now." Jeremy said having just finished putting in the code. "I don't have a vehicle for you yet William, so just hitch a ride with Ulrich."

"Roger that." William said, acting as though he was responding to a military order through radio.

As the vehicle appeared Odd hooped on his overboard, Yumi her overwing, William and Ulrich the overbike and Aelita activated her wings, soaring into the air.

"Watch out, they're moving in on you guys!" Jeremy warned as he watched the monsters move into a linear formation and speed ahead towards the Warriors.

Odd fired a few laser arrows at the group of monsters, nicking one on its side. "So close." He said.

"Hey Ulrich, " William said, "get close to the center of them, I'm going in."

Ulrich zoomed forward, revving up his bike. As the got close the mantis they were bombarded with laser fire. Ulrich was hit once but worked through the hit, not even flinching at the hit.

"Geronimo!" William yelled as he jumped off of the overbike and onto a mantis, sending it out of formation and into the one next to it. William used his large sword to slice through the mantis on his left, the explosion from the destroyed monster sending the mantis William was on spinning out of control. He began to slip, trying to hold into it with his sword. In doing this he accidentally hit X.A.N.A.'s mark on the monster, destroying it.

"Help!" He yelled as he began a free fall to his death. Ulrich swooped down from his current position, laser fire coming at him from all sides. As William was about to hit his end, Ulrich drove below him, catching him and saving his life.

"Thanks, Ulrich." William said, sincerely grateful.

"You owe me one." Ulrich replied, his attention refocusing on the situation at hand.

Yumi and Aelita worked together to surround two mantis, destroying both of them almost simultaneously.

"I think I got enough data from Odd's test to understand how everything will work, you guys can go thought the tunnel and into the mountain sector now so I can devirtualized you." Jeremy said, a relief to the weary warriors.

"Ok Jeremy, we're on our way out." Aelita said, beginning to move towards the opening. As all of the Lyoko Warriors made there way out and landed on a large plateau.

"Ok, I'm bringing you guys in." Jeremy said. "Materialization Yumi, materialization William, materialization Ulrich, materialization Aelita, materialization Odd."

*Beep* *Beep*

Jeremy had a puzzled look on his face as he looked at the red exclamation point on his monitor. 'A materialization problem, but how?' Jeremy thought, wondering what had happened.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal only four of the five warriors, Odd missing. They all had a puzzled expression on their faces.

"Jeremy, what happened with Odd?" Aelita asked, concerned about her friend.

"I don't know... He doesn't show up on Lyoko but he never came back." Jeremy was just as confused as the others, unsure what to do.

"Jeremy, "Yumi said, "what about the terminal experiment, Odd was the only one who tried it and now he's gone."

"I'll check." Jeremy said, sounding disappointed in himself for not programming the terminal better. As he searched for any signs of Odd, he found a fragment of his code was stored in each terminal on Lyoko, making getting all of then a tedious task.

"Well?" Ulrich asked, very concerned for his friend but not as open with it as the others appeared.

"Well, his data fragments have been spread throughout every terminal on Lyoko, I'll need some more time to analyze this before we can take any action."

"How long will that take?" William asked.

"About two hours before I know exactly what is happening." Jeremy replied.

"What about school? Classes start in an hour." Ulrich pointed out.

"Make up an excuse for him, he won't probably be out of there until the afternoon."

"Got it Jeremy, and what about you?" Ulrich asked.

"Just say I was sick with the same thing as Odd." Jeremy said, sounding slightly serious in saying this.

"We better get off to class," William said, "If I'm late for Ms. Hertz class one more time I'll get detention, and I don't need another one on my record."

With that the gang left Jeremy to his work and headed back to campus.

—

Ulrich entered Ms. Hertz class and sat at his usual table. When attendance was called and neither Jeremy nor Odd answered back, Ms Hertz asked, "Ulrich, where are Jeremy and Odd?"

"They both have the flu, they're resting in bed." Ulrich could only hope his internal fear of her knowing he was lying would never become reality.

"Alright. Everyone open to chapter six in your textbooks..."

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	10. Hot and Cold

Jeremy worked frantically to find answers as to Odd's disappearance. He scanned for his code again only to get the same result. "How is that possible." Jeremy said aloud. "It doesn't make sense, my program shouldn't have done this." Jeremy was again frustrated with himself. It was at times like these that he doubted his ability to fix the problem, that he wasn't good enough.

He had been working for five hours now and had nothing to show for it other than a few inconclusive tests and scans. He banged his hand on the keyboard in frustration. "I can't get it! I just can't do it!" Jeremy yelled as though someone would hear his frustrations. He laid his head on the keyboard, quickly falling asleep, having exhausted himself working.

—

Aelita walked out of her last class of the day and noticed her friends all grouped around the vending machines. She walked towards them and upon her arrival overheard the end of a random conversation between Ulrich and William.

"Nah, " William said, a careless expression on his face, "the cafeteria's soup is always warm on Fridays and cold on Tuesdays."

"I'm tellin ya William, it's the other way around. Cold on Fridays and warm on Tuesdays." Ulrich replied.

"Hey guys." Aelita said, breaking the back and forth argument between Ulrich and William.

"Hey Aelita, " Yumi said, tired of listening to them bicker, "have you heard from Jeremy since we left the factory?"

"No, I was actually on my way to see his progress. You guys should probably come too in case he needs us on Lyoko." They all nodded in agreement, Ulrich's gaze moving over to William, gazing at him. This gaze wasn't a gaze of evil, of hate or even of anger, but something much more: acceptance. Ulrich didn't trust William as much as he would the others, but he knew now that they had made the right choice letting him in. Had he not joined when he did, who knows how many times X.A.N.A. might have defeated them in the last few weeks since William joining the group. 'I don't completely trust you, " Ulrich thought, 'but I guess if this is how it's gonna be, I don't have any other choice.'

They made their way through the forest and down into the sewers, talking the whole time about classes, projects and some of X.A.N.A.'s more recent attacks. They were concerned for Odd, but all of them figured Jeremy would be close to a breakthrough given all the time he has worked.

"So, what were you guys arguing about before I joined in?" Aelita asked, pressing the large elevator button, causing it to descend.

"Don't get him started." William said, a smirk on his face. "He just won't give up."

Aelita and Yumi giggled as Ulrich gave William a bold look, although it didn't intimidate him a bit.

"Jeremy, " Aelita said as the elevator doors opened with a slight creak, "how far are you on a..." She stopped speaking when she heard the blond let out a loud snore.

"Is he..." Yumi began.

"Asleep, yeah." William finished. Aelita walked over to Jeremy and kissed him softly on his cheek. "Wake up Jeremy."

Jeremy lifted his head slowly, his eyes unprepared for the light. "Ugg... What happened?" He asked, his hair slightly out of line from sleeping in such an awkward position.

"It looks like you fell asleep on the job there Jeremy." Ulrich answered.

"Speaking of jobs, how much progress have you made in determining what happened to Odd?" Aelita asked.

"Well, I was only able to determine what fragments of code were where. I tried creating a harvester program to gather all fourth or so fragments, but nothing worked." Jeremy's voice progressively became quieter and said with less effort as he spoke.

"Don't worry, Jeremy, we know where he is, that's a start." Yumi said, breaking the internal struggle between Jeremy's mind and his lack of confidence temporarily. "Could we just go to each tower and get the fragments?"

"No, I thought about that, but only Aelita could collect a fragment through the terminal. If it comes down to it that's what we'll do, but that would take hours and the fragments may get distorted along the way." Jeremy replied, shooting down her idea.

"What if I go on Lyoko and gather Odd's major codes while you stay here and re-program the smaller ones." Aelita suggested.

"That's actually not a bad idea. It would cut our time in half, just about. Why don't all of you go ahead to the scanners and I'll send you to the first major fragment?" Jeremy asked.

No answer was provided, but it wasn't needed as all four of them made there way down in the elevator. When the doors slid open they all walked into their own respective scanners.

"Scanner Yumi, scanner William, scanner Aelita, scanner Ulrich."  
"Transfer Yumi, transfer William, transfer Aelita, transfer Ulrich."  
"Virtualization!"

Their minds were sent through the insulated cables and transferred into code. The process was completed in mere seconds, an easy task for a computer of the supercomputers caliber.

All four of the Warriors fell to the surface of the forest sector with a light thud. William landed on one knee, his sword holstered on his shoulder.

"Where to Jeremy?" William asked, standing up from his falling stance.

"It should be within sight to the north." Jeremy said, looking over the monitor. "Aelita, there are only four major fragments that I can't program myself, one in each Way-Tower. Once we get all four and I finish programming the smaller pieces, we should be able to out Odd back into one piece."

"Ok, let's get moving." Ulrich said beginning his sprint towards the tower. They reached the tower in under a minute having run quickly there.

Aelita entered the tower as the others stood guard by the entrance. She levitated to the second platform and began working on the terminal. "Jeremy, I'm sending you the file."

"I got it Aelita, great job." Jeremy said. "One down, three to go." Just as he said this, a beeping noise erupted from the speakers of his monitor. "Umm... Guys, we have a problem. Three hornets on their way to your location, be carful."

"We see them Jeremy." Yumi said, preparing her bladed fans.

The hornets flew at the Warriors in a triangular formation, rotating positions continually. Ulrich did a run-and-jump at the formation of hornets, aiming his blades at the monsters. He was shot by the bottom left Horner with a purple laser just before his blades hit it dead center, destroying it.

"Jeremy, what was I hit with?" A concerned Ulrich asked, fearing the worst.

"I'm not sure, let me check." Jeremy said through his headset, looking for any clues as to what happened to Ulrich. "It appears that you were hit with a poison laser. You will gradually lose life points over time until you reach zero."

"Well, I guess it could be worse." Ulrich said.

"Ulrich, duck!" William yelled. Ulrich hit the ground as William jumped over his body, swinging his blade into one of the two remaining hornets. "I think that makes us even." William said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Yeah, I guess it does." Ulrich replied, keeping his emotions to himself.

"Watch out!" Aelita yelled as she exited the tower. A Hornet flew right above them, hitting William with a normal laser blast. Yumi threw her fans at the Hornet, the first one missed but the second fan hit with extreme precision.

"Thanks, Yumi." William said walking over to her.

"We got all we needed here, just three more towers to go." Jeremy said, his voice containing hope for the first time today.

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	11. I believe

Jeremy glared at the bright monitor in front of him with annoyance. He had been working for the last hour trying to recreate Odd's minor codes while the others worked on gathering his major codes, but was beginning to wonder if he could actually do it.

'I just don't understand!' Jeremy thought, his hope from an hour ago having left him. 'If only I were smarter, if I knew what to do.' Before X.A.N.A., Jeremy had only grades to worry about, a minor concern to him, but now he was doing work that even the most experienced programmers couldn't handle. All this stress broke him, making him often doubt himself and his abilities. It was situations like this that killed him on the inside, crushing his spirit as though it were a melon under the force of a sledgehammer.

"Jeremy," Aelita said from the mountain sector, interrupting his internal struggle of futility, "we have the second major fragment."

"Good, I'm having some trouble here, but I'll try to work it out. Head to the desert sector next through the Way-Tower." Jeremy replied, trying hard to hide the annoyance in his voice.

"Let's move." Aelita said, the others instantly reacting to her command. They had gotten the second fragment easily, no monsters, no hassle. Yumi worried the whole time that X.A.N.A. would sneak up on them, but nothing out of the ordinary happened as they made their way through the Way-Tower on to the desert sector.

"Jeremy, where's the tower containing the fragment?" Aelita asked as they exited the tower.

"Should be..." Jeremy took a pause to find the tower being heavily distracted by his current work, "due south, but be carful, I see two megatanks guarding the tower."

"I knew X.A.N.A. wouldn't let us off easy today." Yumi stated, secure in the fact that her suspicions earlier were correct.

As the gang began sprinting towards the tower, William looked back to see Ulrich taking up the rear, moving at a slightly slow and lazy pace.

"Hey Ulrich, you commin'?" William asked.

"I... I..." Unable to speak clearly, Ulrich fell to the ground.

"Hey guys, Ulrich's down!" William yelled, causing the girls to look back. Yumi broke into a heavy run towards Ulrich, feeling great concern for him.

"Jeremy, what's happening?" Aelita inquired, worried about Ulrich.

"I think it may be the poison laser he was hit with earlier. I may need to bring him back, he's no good on Lyoko if he can't move." Jeremy began entering the materialization code when suddenly Ulrich spoke up.

"No, Jeremy... I can still fight." Ulrich picked himself up and began walking towards the tower.

Jeremy peered at his screen and, being do distracted by Ulrich's incident, noticed that the two megatanks that were guarding the tower were now arriving near the Lyoko warriors. "Guys, monsters on the way get ready!"

William got into a battle stance as the megatanks rolled upon them. Aelita readied an energy sphere in her right hand, ready to strike. The megatanks stopped rolling at a fair distance from the group but still close enough to see. They opened their shells, much like a walnut being shelled, but one did something the warriors found very peculiar. As it opened up it also turned on its side. The gang just came to the realization as to what this means as it fired, the one next to it closing up into its shell as to not take any damage, it's laser sphere rapidly expanding horizontally.

"Jump!" William yelled flinging his body in the air as the laser reached him. Aelita flew to escape the attack, but Ulrich wasn't able to jump being so weak from the poison. Yumi made a split second decisions, throwing Ulrich into the air just as the laser hit her, devirtualizing her in the blink of an eye.

"Yumi!" William yelled, turning to face the megatank that had just fired. "That was a mistake." He used his supersmoke to creep up behind the monster and slash it into not two, but three pieces with force, swiftly moving his blade back and forth through it. By the time it exploded, the other megatank opened up to see what was happening, only to be hit by Aelita's energy field.

"Great job you two, now make it to the tower before anything else shows up." Jeremy looked over to his left as the elevator doors slid open, revealing a disappointed Yumi.

"Tell Yumi I said thanks, will ya?" Ulrich asked Jeremy.

Yumi smiled as she overheard him say this. "I think she already knows." Jeremy answered in a happy tone.

Aelita ran for the tower hoping to waste no time in saving Odd. She entered the tower moments later, floated up to the terminal and retrieved the fragment of code.

"I got the third piece Jeremy, just one left: the Ice Sector." Aelita said, exiting the tower.

"Great, you guys head tree and I'll keep working on finishing Odd's other codes." With this Jeremy pulled out his earpiece and placed his head in his hands.

"What's wrong?" Yumi asked, concerned for her friend.

"I don't know if I can do this, Yumi. I mean, I have gotten some of it, but I haven't figured out anything to do with his genes or with the fusion of the major and minor fragments. I just don't think I'm good enough for this." Jeremy lifted his head to look at her, his face grim while at the same time also seeming blank to her.

"Jeremy, don't worry. I know you can do this, just give it time." Yumi gave that her best shot, but she somehow knew that wouldn't be the end of it.

"I gave things time, I worked on Aelita's anti-virus forever only to find out I didn't need it and I worked night and day to make a program that kills X.A.N.A. And that didn't work. I'm not good enough to do this, Yumi. Nothing I do works, nothing." Jeremy had just finished releasing his anxieties to Yumi, who was unsure how to respond at first, but made it up as she went.

"Jeremy, you have done things that I would have never believed before this. You have helped save the world over a hundred times, you re-programmed Lyoko when X.A.N.A. destroyed it, heck, you even brought Aelita back into the real world. You have done so much in the past, you have no reason to doubt yourself now." With that, Yumi embraced him. "I believe in you, Jeremy. We all do, never forget that." Jeremy couldn't find the words to say, he was so overtaken with emotion that he did the only thing he could do: he cried.

Thanks for all the support, keep it commin and I'll keep writing! Review! Thanks!


	12. Carthage

Aelita passed through the Way-Tower and onto the Ice Sector, Ulrich and William following close behind her. Ulrich had lost a lot of strength on their way over, but he persisted on still being able to fight. The tower containing the last piece to Odd's code was a fair distance away, complicating the already difficult process.

"Jeremy," Aelita said, "can you virtualizes the vehicles for us?"

Jeremy, upon hearing her, put his earpiece back in an said, "I'm on it. William, you can just use the overboard until I can program you a vehicle." Jeremy typed a few codes in on his keyboard, causing the vehicles to appear on Lyoko.

They each hopped on their own respective vehicles, Ulrich the overbike, Aelita the overwing and William the overboard. William had some trouble with it at first but gradually became more accustom to it.

As they approached the tower, Jeremy called out to them. "Guys, you've got company. Three tarantulas up ahead."

Ulrich looked ahead only to find that his vision was beginning to blur. The group of three warriors arrived within range of the monsters only to be welcomed by a seemingly endless amount of laser fire from their adversaries. Aelita and William pulled mid air spins and tricks to dodge the lasers, a true display of their skills. Ulrich on the other hand was having trouble even driving straight, his vision losing its clarity more quickly than he had expected.

William made it behind the three tarantulas, causing the one in the middle to turn around and face him. He jumped off and gave the monster a stare, a challenge. The monster repositioned itself as though it was intimidated by William's boldness. When it finally fired off its three round bursts from both of its arms, William used supersmoke to dodge it.

"Missed me." His remark caused the monster to fire again out of anger. He again dodged it with his supersmoke.

"X.A.N.A., you're slackin'. You can't even hit a 14 year old boy." He used his supersmoke to get behind the aggravated monster and slashed his sword straight through the mark of X.A.N.A. on the monsters head, destroying it. "Guess your not very smart either, X.A.N.A." William laughed a little while saying this.

William was caught off guard as he began to fade into code, shot simultaneously by the monsters on either side of him. "Well played." William said as he exited his scanner, feeling slightly defeated.

"Jeremy, William's devirtualized." Aelita said.

"We don't need any other surprises like that, be carful. Aelita, you can't be devirtualized or we lose the fragments, meaning no Odd." Jeremy replied in a serious tone.

Aelita looked over at the two remaining monsters and noticed that they hadn't turned back to face her yet. Seeing the open opportunity, she fired an energy field from her right hand, destroying the tarantula on the left. The one to her right returned fire, hitting the overwing with all six of its shots. Aelita caught herself with her wings just before she hit the ground, the vehicle having vanished into a cloud of code.

"Aelita, we have a problem. X.A.N.A. has begun running a program to delete all information from the tower, you have to hurry before he finishes." Jeremy frantically worked to stop X.A.N.A.'s program, but he wasn't holding out too much hope in his end.

"Got it Jeremy, I'll make..." Aelita in her distraction was hit by the tarantula's lasers, losing most of her life points. She looked ahead of her to see the monster preparing to fire again. Her hands moved, trying to form an energy field to block the blast, but she was too late, the monster fired it's lasers. Aelita shut her eyes in fear of what was about to happen, but heard something she didn't expect, Ulrich's voice.

"Aelita!" He yelled, using all of his force to jump in front of her, stopping the lasers from hitting her, but in turn devirtualizing himself.

Aelita took this opportunity to fire off an energy field, destroying the monster. "Jeremy, how much time until X.A.N.A. clears the tower?" She asked, running as fast as she could towards her target.

"I have no idea, he has fluctuated times back and forth from three hours to seconds." Jeremy worked fiercely, his fingers beginning to cramp from all the typing.

Aelita reached the tower in record time, her legs would have been worn out had she done this on earth. She entered the tower quickly, levitated to the second platform and rushed to the terminal. She began searching for data, information, code, anything, but what she found was a blank terminal.

Empty.

Void.

Nothingness.

"Aelita, X.A.N.A. has finished clearing the tower! Did you get the fragment?" Ulrich, William and Yumi stood behind Jeremy waiting for Aelita to answer, a time which felt as thought it stretched on for hours.

"I... I didn't get it..." Aelita fell to her knees. They all thought for a second 'this is a bad dream, wake up', but as the seconds passed, none of them did. This was real, Odd was gone.

"I'll bring you in." Jeremy said, starting the materialization process. A few seconds later as Aelita exited the elevator, she was met with a scene of true pain. Yumi was wrapped around Ulrich, Yumi crying while Ulrich was left speechless, his mind still not able to accept that this was real. Jeremy sat in his chair, softly crying while frantically typing, trying to do something about this even when he knew there was nothing he could do. William was leaned up against the wall, and although he would deny it if anyone asked him, Aelita could have sworn she saw a tear fall from his face. Aelita walked over to Jeremy and did all she could do, cry on his shoulder. All she could think about was Odd, his face, his hair, his jokes. All anyone in that room could think about was how they would never see their friend again.

—

The next day, the gang all met at their usual lunch table to eat breakfast, although none of them were in any mood to eat. Yumi had left home early to see her friends before school started.

"Well," William said, "what are we going to do about this? What are we going to tell the teachers?" It was true, in their mourning for their friend those thoughts had never crossed their minds.

"I don't know, William. I just don't know." Jeremy said, his mind was unable to think of what to do, because there was nothing to do. Odd wasn't coming back, they would have to tell the teachers something, but he was too broken up about it to come up with something now, they all were.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Jeremy's laptop went off, causing the gang to look up from their blank stares and move their focus on him. He pulled out his laptop and found something very peculiar.

"Guys... It's a message." Jeremy began to shake a little bit, his hands hardly able to type. "It's from a user called 'Carthage'."

"Could it be my father?" Aelita asked, deeply hoping it was so.

"I'm not sure, but whoever it was they sent a pretty large file." Jeremy answered.

"What did they send?" Yumi asked.

"It's... It's a file containing Odd's code." Jeremy's words acted like a crane lifting the weight off of the gangs shoulders.

"Really?!" Ulrich asked, his face lighting up.

"I think so. We need to get to the factory, now!" And with that they all ran to the factory.

—

Jeremy had worked for the last twenty minutes imputing Odd's code. When he was finally finished he entered the code. The rematerialization process had begun. They all piled into the elevator and went down, the fear of all of them being that it wouldn't work.

As the elevator doors opened up, they were all filed with joy at what they saw.

"Guys, what happened? Man am I hungry, is it lunch time?" Odd asked, emerging from his scanner.

"Odd!" They all yelled, rushing in to hug him, tears of joy rolling off of their faces.

All six of the Warriors were gathered in Jeremy's room, trying to go over some recent events.

"Jeremy, could that have been my father?" Aelita asked.

"I'm not sure, but I couldn't think of anyone else who could send us that code." Jeremy answered, cracking a slight smile towards Aelita.

"Whoever it was, we have to face facts. X.A.N.A. has gotten much stronger, and I doubt that will change." Yumi said. "We need to up our game or one day one of us may be gone for good, and I can't go through that again." The room felt the weight of her words, all of them knowing it to be true.

"Don't worry Yumi," Odd said, "as long as Rose keeps giving me seconds for lunch, I could beat X.A.N.A. and then some." They all burst out laughing, breaking the serious atmosphere that had lingered over them for so long. One thing was for sure; X.A.N.A. was going to throw everything he had at them.

But something else was also true; they were going to fight as hard as they could to beat him every time, no matter what.

Thanks for all the views, hope you enjoy. Review!


	13. Ep 4 Homecoming-Hope

Episode 4: "Homecoming"

Jeremy walked through the line in the cafeteria, first getting a crescent, followed by pancakes, bacon and a glass of orange juice. He walked over to the gangs usual table to find Ulrich, Odd and William all laughing, pieces of food falling out of Odd's mouth as he had filled it over compactly.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Jeremy asked, wondering what could have made his friends laugh so hard.

"Odd just looked up some of the most hilarious jokes ever on his phone." Ulrich answered, still laughing his head off.

"You wanna hear it, Einstein?" Odd asked already pulling the page back up on his phone.

"I think I'm good." Jeremy had just realized Aelita wasn't at the table, making him worry just a bit. "Where's Aelita?"

"I think she's still in her room, I passed by and she was sitting on her computer with the door open." William answered.

"William, what exactly were you doing in the girls dorm?" Ulrich asked, drawing the attention of the other two boys at William.

"Umm... studying..." William answered in a slightly off voice. The others to burst out laughing, William even joining in after a couple seconds.

"What are you dweebs laughing at?" Sissi snarled, having walked up to the table seconds earlier.

"What do you want, Sissi?" Ulrich asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Well, Ulrich dear, I just wanted to tell you to wear something nice tomorrow night for when we are voted king and queen at homecoming."

Ulrich laughed a little at this. "What makes you think you're going to win? Better question, what makes you think we would win together?"

"Because we would be the cutest couple ever, everyone in the school knows that." Sissi answered leaning in closer to Ulrich who was sitting on the outside chair of the table.

"Sorry, Sissi, last I checked Ulrich doesn't date baboons." The laughter before was no comparison to how loud it was now. Ulrich had to put his head down to block some of the sound and William almost slid out of his seat.

Sissi walked back to her usual table, her face red either from anger, embarrassment or both.

"What are you gonna do about homecoming, Sissi?" Nicholas asked with his usual clueless face.

"Ulrich and I will be king and queen, I'll make sure of it."

"And how are you gonna pull that off?" Herb asked, eating a piece of bacon.

"I have a plan, but I'm going to need some help." Sissi looked at Nicholas and Herb, a sinister smile on her face.

—

Jeremy walked down the girls' dorm hallway, stopping at Aelita's door.

*Knock* *Knock*

"Aelita, you there?"

After a couple of seconds, Aelita opened the door. "Hey, Jeremy, what's up?"

"Just wondering why you weren't at breakfast." He asked, concern not as prevalent in his tone as it could have been, but it was certainly there.

"I've just been looking over some stuff..." She paused for a couple of seconds. "Jeremy, do you think my father could still be alive somewhere?"

Jeremy was unsure how to answer her, so he just stated the facts. "Well, I don't know. He appeared to sacrifice himself when we used the multi-agent program to destroy X.A.N.A., but the message I was sent that had Odd's code was sent under the name Carthage. There's enough information to support the idea that he didn't survive." Upon saying this, Aelita's face dropped slightly, a sad expression on her face. "But, there's also enough there for us to hold hope. Don't worry, Aelita, we'll do whatever we can to find him if he's out there."

Aelita reached out and embraced Jeremy. "Thank you, Jeremy."

"Anytime, Princess." Jeremy smiled knowing that he had given her hope to get through this. Aelita smiled because she knew that with her friends, especially Jeremy, she could get through this.

—

Ulrich, Odd and William were all gathered in the recreation room on campus. It was about eight at night and Ulrich and William playing an intense game of phooseball.

"The ball rolls to William, he lines up the shot." Odd announced, acting as though he was a live sports announcer. "He shoots and it's blocked by Ulrich by the goal. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, this is a tied game nine to nine, making this game-point. It's over to Ulrich who swings for a hard corner shot in and it's blocked by William's left side. William kicks off his shot and it heads over."

The ball quickly moved passed Ulrich's players, scoring William the winning goal.

"Goal!" Odd exclaimed, attracting the attention of everyone in the room.

"Good game." Ulrich said, happy even with his loss.

"Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I thought you had me there when you were ahead by three, but I came back and won it all." William replied.

"Don't forget about our soccer game from earlier, I killed you." Ulrich reminded the raven haired boy.

"Three to one isn't killing last I checked." William replied.

"Girls, girls, you're both pretty." Odd said, breaking up the light hearted argument. They all laughed at Odd's comment.

"Hey, I just got the new Subdigitals cd if you guys want to head back to my room and listen." William offered.

"Sure, anything is better than being in a room that smells like Odd's feet." Ulrich and William burst out laughing.

"Hey, my feet aren't that bad!" Odd persisted.

"No offense man, but they really are." William answered as the three exited the rec. room and headed towards William's room.

Sissi watched as the three left, her mind wondering randomly as she stood there.

"Hey Sissi, I'm gonna go to the vending machine, want anything to drink?" Herb asked, a faint smile on his face.

Sissi was broken from her trance of thought as though she was being forcefully ripped from it with no way to get back to it. "Of course I don't want a drink, can't you see I'm thinking?" Her voice pierced through Herb, but he was used to it.

Herb walked out and went to the machines, thinking to himself. 'Sissi can be a real jerk sometimes. Oh, who am I kidding? She is always a jerk, always has been, always will be.' Herb popped his money into the machine and pressed the button for a soda, it making a clanking noise as it fell to the opening in the machine. 'She is so hated that she would have to rig the votes to ever win homecoming.' Thinking over what he had just said for a second, he realized exactly what idea he had unconsciously just created.

He ran back into the rec. room almost hitting Milly and Tamiya on his way in.

"What are you running for?" Sissi asked in her usual offensive tone.

"Sissi, I know how you can win homecoming with Ulrich!" Herb exclaimed, causing the room to look at him.

He leaned in closer and whispered his idea into her ear as quietly as a mouse walking on a carpet.

Sissi's eyes grew wider as he continued to explain his plan, a devilishly sinister smile on her face.

Thanks for all the support, read and review!


	14. Hiroki!

Yumi was sitting at the table in her home eating breakfast, still half asleep. She had been up all last night texting Ulrich, something they did quite often now. Last night Ulrich texted her about how he and William were actually starting to get along, something that caused her great relief. For years Ulrich had resented William, first because of his interest in Yumi and them more so when he became possessed by X.A.N.A.

"Yumi dear, how's your toast?" Her mother asked, awakening Yumi from her dosed off state of thought.

"It's good, mom." She replied with a slight slur in her voice, showing just how tired she was.

"Did you sleep well last night? You seem very tired." Her mother questioned, forcing Yumi to think of something to say, defiantly not that she was texting a boy all night.

"We have a big English exam today and I was studying." She wished she had said something else as her lie seemed very apparent to her.

"Speaking of English," her father interrupted while he took a bite out of his slightly burnt toast, "what's your grade in there?"

"Umm... I think it's a high B, but I'll bring it up to an A with this test, I promise." She was beginning to sweat, knowing that she would most likely do poorly on this test.

"Good, you know how important your grades are. Colleges are looking for overachievers, that means all A's." Yumi's father said, looking over at his daughter with a serious face.

"She's probably too busy taking to her boyfriend to study." Hiroki interrupted, laughing a little after saying this.

"Hiroki!" Yumi half yelled towards her little brother.

"It's true!" He returned the tone his sister had just sent him.

"Settle down you two!" Mr. Ishiyama said, closing the argument.

"It's about time for you two to head off to school." Mrs. Ishiyama said. "Hurry or you'll be late."

Yumi grabbed her last piece of toast and walked out of her house, Hiroki following suit.

About half way to school, Hiroki said, "I know all about you and Ulrich. Your diary was a pretty interesting read, but I thought it was pretty boring after a while of the same stuff. 'I wish I could be with Ulrich more' and 'Ulrich is so sweet'." Hiroki looked at his sister after saying this, her ears might as well be steaming as her face resembled the molten rock of a volcano.

"Hiroki, you have five seconds to run before I kill you." Yumi's expression while saying this was one of pure anger, not a drop of forgiveness existed in her pool of rage at the moment.

"You wouldn't hurt me, Yumi." Hiroki replied, trying to avoid the situation, possibly even thinking it was an over exaggerated reaction that she would quickly cool down from.

"Five!" Yumi counted, continuing her stare of anger down into her younger brother.

"Come on, Yumi, it's not that bad." Hiroki was beginning to worry, taking her threat more seriously.

"Four!" She said even louder, her expression as non-changing as though she was a stone figure.

With that, Hiroki ran for his life, not looking back for anything. Yumi continued walking towards school at her normal pace, slightly upset by her brother's actions.

'Hiroki, one of these days I won't give you five seconds.' Her thoughts were then changed over to Ulrich. 'Maybe I could ask him if he wants to see a movie later. Oh, right. Tonight is homecoming. I'll see if he wants to go with me.'

Her thoughts wondered for the rest of her walk to school, causing her to bump into people from time to time. She wasn't sure why, but she had a feeling that today would be interesting for her. The thing that bothered her most: she has no idea wether it would be interesting in a good way, or a bad way.

—

Aelita and Jeremy had been in the factory all night looking for any trace of Aelita's father, Franz Hopper. They had been looking from 9:00 pm to 7:00 am with no luck. Jeremy got some work done on William's vehicle, but it still wasn't fully operational. Aelita spent most of them time searching on her laptop through the supercomputers processors.

"Aelita, we should probably head back now, classes will start in about forty-five minutes." The tired genius said, stretching as he yawned out the words.

"You go ahead, I want to keep looking for a few minutes." The pink haired angel responded, her mind so focused on the task at hand that she was unable to look up from her screen.

Jeremy hopped out of his chair and walked over to Aelita. "Come on, Aelita, we can come back after class and keep looking if you want."

Aelita gave in to his request, slowly closing her laptop. "I thought for sure we would find him, given all the time we spent looking." Aelita stood up and yawned. Unlike Jeremy who was used to no sleep, she wasn't handling her tired condition very well.

"Let's go, maybe if we're lucky we can make it in time to hear Odd complain about wanting more food." Aelita laughed at her boyfriend's joke. This got her thinking, he has done so much for her in the past: helping her look for her father even when all hope was lost, helping her discover information about her past, heck, he even saved me from possibly being stuck in the supercomputer forever. She owed him everything, her existence in this world was because of him.

"Jeremy, thanks for all the help." She said, a bright smile forming on her otherwise tired and motionless face.

"Anything for you, princess." He replied, smiling in a similar fashion.

"Not just for this, but for everything." Aelita walked up to Jeremy and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for everything, Jeremy."

"You're welcome, Aelita." Jeremy said in his usual post-kiss state, hardly able to react. If anything could wake him up after a night of no sleep, this was it. His face was locked in full smile, but he quickly moved towards the elevator where Aelita was waiting for him. He still had an awkward reaction to romantic things, but he was gradually getting better at dealing with it.

As Jeremy pushed the button sending the ever-aging elevator upward, both of them thought about everything that had happened to them over the last couple of years and how greatly their lives had changed.

Jeremy though about how, without the supercomputer, he may never have become friends with Ulrich, Yumi and Odd. More importantly, he would never have met Aelita, the angel of his dreams.

Aelita had similar thoughts. Had Jeremy never found the supercomputer, she may never have been awakened from her eternal slumber, leaving her as just bits of code, never to awaken and be freed into the real world.

As they exited the elevator and made their way up to the bridge leading back to the city, they held hands, knowing they wouldn't wish to be anywhere else.


	15. It's Electric

Odd, Ulrich, Jeremy and Aelita were sitting in Mrs. Meyer's math class. Odd was nearing sleep, hardly holding his figure up in such a groggy state. Mrs. Meyer's eyes veered over towards Odd, noticing his apparent desire to sleep through her class.

"Mr. Della Robbia, would you mind explaining the Quadratic Formula to the class?" She said, her face stern and beginning to develop a sense of irritation at the unimaginable laziness Odd displayed every time he had her class.

"Umm..." Odd's voice perfectly illustrated to the class just how tired he was, "it's a formula that has been bitten by the evil quads, a race of math vampires." The class burst out laughing, Ulrich still looking at Odd, almost as though he was waiting for him to say something else.

"Well, Odd, if you think you're so funny, why don't you tell that one to the principal." Her sentence was technically a question, but you would never know it by the tone of her voice: commanding and irritated.

"Aww, man." Odd stood up and walked out of class, closing the door with a slight *slam*, not a loud one as to display anger, but a gentle one, a way to display his deep irritation with his situation and desire to have just slept in this morning.

"Now then, let's get back on track. Open you textbooks to page 226."

—

"Mr. Della Robbia, I don't want excuses, I want answers. You have been in my office three times on the last two weeks, you have been late and even ditched your classes on countless occasions and you have even destroyed lab equipment in the science lab." Mr. Delmas said, sitting in his usual chair behind the desk in his office. His face resembled that of a man worn out, tired of trying and ready to take any action necessary to fix the issue.

"I can explain that, sir." Odd protested in a rather respectful manner.

"I don't want to know. You have disrupted your classes, openly disobeyed teacher orders." Mr. Delmas scrolled down a list he had earlier compiled of all the incidents and demerits Odd had accumulated over the last few months, "I think my only choice is to reprimand you for your actions. You may not attend the homecoming dance tonight, and you won't be allowed to participate on any extracurricular activities until your teachers agree that you have improved on your grade." Mr. Delmas had a harsher punishment floating around his mind, but, being the sensible man he was, he thought Odd deserved another chance.

"Yes, sir." Odd replied, accepting his prison term of a fate.

"Now, get off to class." Mr. Delmas said, Odd then leaving his office.

—

"Would you two idiots hurry up?" Sissi half asked, half commanded. Nicholas and Herb were behind her with a large amount of papers in their hands. "The ballot boxes are in here." Sissi walked into the currently empty closet in the gym.

"Sissi, do you really think this plan will work?" Nicholas asked, looking rather confused by the papers he was carrying.

"Hey, don't criticize the plan, it was my idea." Herb said in the loudest whisper voice he could muster with the pitch of his voice.

"Would both of you shut up?" Sissi questioned, opening the ballot boxes. "If this works just like we plan, Ulrich and I will be king and queen. Then he'll fall in love with me and we'll live happily ever after." Sissi's eyes filled with visions of Ulrich.

"Sissi, I don't think it works like that." Herb said, slightly beaten due to his feelings for Sissi.

"Well, it better work like that this time, for your sake." Sissi said, making sure to strike fear into her laborers.

Sissi filled the boys ballot box with pieces of paper saying "Ulrich", while she did the same with girls names saying "Sissi".

"When that call the king and queen to the stage, Ulrich will be shocked to be with me." Sissi said, her voice that of a hunter having just set a trap for her pray.

—

Ulrich was getting ready for homecoming, it already being 7:30 pm. He only had thirty minutes before the dance began and he wanted to look his best. Yumi asked him if he wanted to go with her earlier that day, and he said yes. Ulrich's heart practically skipped not just one, but two beats upon hearing her say this to him earlier.

"Too bad you can't go, Odd." Ulrich said, trying to sound sympathetic even with his unusually good mood still being set in place.

"It's fine, I didn't want to dress up fancy anyway. Plus Jeremy said that I could watch for a tower while he's gone, so I'll have a very interesting night." The sarcasm rolled off Odd's sightly dry lips.

"I'm sorry. Just study for our test tomorrow or something." Ulrich said, trying to figure out how to tighten his tie.

"So, you going with Yumi?" Odd asked, his face turning to a smile as though he has just forgotten about how boring his evening would be.

"Umm... Yeah, but we are just friends." Ulrich said, sweat appearing by his brow.

"Sure you are." Odd said with many major slurs and pauses in the sentence, making in seem extremely sarcastic. The school bell rang, signaling that the dance was now letting students in. "Have fun."

"Thanks, buddy, you too." Ulrich said, leaving his friend back in their dorm.

Odd had been working on his forced assignments from his teachers when he heard a *beep* *beep* *beep* coming from Jeremy's laptop.

'Oh no!' He thought, his mind worried over the possible destruction X.A.N.A may be causing somewhere in the world. "I've got to tell the others."

—

"Hey, Joe, come look at this." Bill asked his friend. They were both city power workers, and Bill showed his friend the monitor.

"What's going on?" He asked, concerned over what may happen next. "It's almost as though the city's power grid is overloading at a rapid pace. How is that possible?"

"It's not," Bill said, thinking back to his classes on power overloads and how to deal with them, "it's probably just a glitch in the system. I'll have the guys go check it out." Bill motioned for the group of three electric workers to go out and test the large cables for overloading. What he didn't notice, however, was the mark that covered his large computer screen.

Thanks for all the support, I was super tired when I wrote this, so it probably won't be amazing. Please read and review.


	16. Come on Up

Yumi was waiting by the entrance of the gym for Ulrich. They had begun allowing students in a few minutes ago, but she decided to wait for him, thinking it would be difficult to find him in the crowded gymnasium.

Yumi was wearing a sleek jet black dress, the outside shining in the moonlight. Dresses weren't her style, but she wanted to look beautiful for Ulrich. 'This thing is so uncomfortable,' Yumi thought, pulling at the right side dress strap, 'I'm glad I don't have to dress like this every day.'

Her eyes moved to the right of her almost as though they were moving on their own, as though they knew what she had been waiting for was in sight.

"Hey." Ulrich said, wearing a sleek black suit and jacket, a red tie setting the background color. "You look beautiful tonight."

"Thank you, " Yumi said, feeling as though caterpillars in her stomach having just become butterflies, "you look sharp yourself."

"Shall we go in?" The brown haired boy asked, glad he decide to apply an extra layer of deodorant before he came.

"Sure." Ulrich and Yumi walked into the gym, Ulrich nervously reaching for Yumi's hand. Yumi grabbed his hand as well, joining the two together, happy as could be.

—

"Jeremy, I think I see Ulrich and Yumi over on the other side of the gym." Aelita said, standing near her date. They had wondered if Ulrich and Yumi would go together, but they both really already knew the answer to that question.

"Cool, do you wanna go over and talk to them?" Jeremy asked, looking at Aelita who was wearing a sparkling pink dress. Jeremy was wearing something similar to Ulrich's, but his tie was blue instead of red.

"Sure, let's go."

Jeremy and Aelita walked over to the others, noticing them laughing at a joke Ulrich had told moments ago.

"So then, the robber looks at the judge and says... Oh, hey guys." Ulrich said, interrupted mid-sentence.

"Hey." Aelita said, her usual bright smile on her face. "You guys enjoying the dance?"

"Yes, I'm really enjoying it." Yumi said, looking over at Ulrich, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink, almost unnoticeable in the darkness of the gym.

"Eh hem." Mr. Delmas said through a microphone in the middle of the gym. "May I have your attention? I will now announce your homecoming king and queen as chosen by the students in this mornings vote." At this point all of the students were turned towards him, paying full attention.

"For your queen, we have... Well, it would appear that my daughter Elizabeth has won queen. Please come over here darling." Mr. Delmas was actually fairly surprised by that, but was ready to continue as though it were anyone else.

"And for your king, we have Ulrich Stern. Please come over here for the crowning, Ulrich."

The shock that was present on Ulrich's face was more apparent than a scratch on a black car. The others weren't in much better shape either, unsure what to think.

"Come on, Ulrich." Mr. Delmas said, his daughter already standing by his side, her face full of joy and excitement.

Ulrich walked towards the principal, moving slowly as though he was trying to prolong the inevitable forever. When he arrived at the center of the gym a few moments later, the crowning commenced. Ulrich was given a large and very plain crown where as Sissi's was smaller and more flashy.

"We will now commence the king and queen dance. Remember children, keep a fair distance between yourselves while dancing." Mr. Delmas finished and a romantic slow song played. Yumi had mixed feelings over this, unsure wether she should be angry or upset by this, so she was forced to be both.

"I've been waiting forever for this." Sissi said, moving closer to Ulrich as they danced.

"Sissi, how did you pull this one off, because I know that the student body didn't vote you queen." Ulrich was as cynical as ever, a skill he was glad he had acquired over time.

"Why, I cheated of course. You don't get anywhere in life unless you break a couple rules." Sissi was enjoying this dance more than anything, and in this state of bliss had no idea of the effects her answer would have on her later.

Standing by the punch, Jeremy gazed at his phone which had vibrated moments ago. It was a text from Odd, reading, "X.A.N.A.". Just then, a blanket of darkness fell upon the gymnasiums. All the lights out, many students began yelling and making noises as though they were animals. Jeremy used his phone to text the others about the attack, informing them all to meet outside the gym. Jeremy blindly felt his way out of the gym and into the moonlight outside.

"Sorry, Sissi, gotta roll." Ulrich said, beginning to walk away from her. Sissi's arm reached out, grabbing Ulrich so forcefully that he wondered if it was actually her grabbing him.

"Ulrich, you're staying right here. I've dreamed of this night my whole life and one little power outage isn't gonna take that away from me." Sissi's grip tightened, almost warning Ulrich of what will happen is he tries to pull away again.

—

All of the warriors had met entering the sewers. Odd grabbed William from his room when he found out about the X.A.N.A. attack, right before he texted the others.

"Where's Ulrich?" Odd asked as he climbed up the ladder and onto the bridge.

"He texted me and said he was stuck with Sissi." Yumi said, her eyes still full of sadness and a bit of anger, but she began to set those aside and recompose herself.

They were all on Lyoko within that minute, their speed unmatched when it came to going to Lyoko.

"Ok, Guys, the tower is just up ahead. Watch yourself, you've got a few bloks to take care of." Jeremy's glasses were bright, reflecting the light off of the monitor. The warriors were in the forest sector along a fairly straight and open path, making the job of fighting relatively easy.

—

The students had been in the dark for longer than anyone had bother to count. Many had settled down as Jim worked to fix the power through the box stationed on the back wall of the gym.

Suddenly, a burst of lightening jumped from the box, knocking Jim out in a flash. The lightning landed near the center of the gym, just by Ulrich and Sissi, as it began to take a shape.

'X.A.N.A., please let this be a fireworks display and not a killer monster.' Ulrich hoped, although he knew how empty of a hope it was.

The bolt began to form a shape similar to that of a person, only slightly taller than most of the children in the gym. It reached out for Ulrich, but he was able to dodge it in time. In frustration, the monster shot lighting from its hands, blackening the wood of the gym floor.

'Guys, deactivate that tower quick.' Ulrich thought as he began running for the exit in the back of the gym.

—

Yumi threw her fans at the first of three bloks, her fans being shot down by the other two as the first one shot at Yumi, hitting her in the side.

"Yumi, be carful, you can't take any more hits." Jeremy reminded, slightly worried about their current situation.

"Guys, I've got a plan..." William said, spending about thirty seconds explaining his elaborate plan to the others. "Ok, you guys got it?"

"We're ready." Aelita answered,  
speaking for the whole group.

"Then let's roll."

William ran forwards as fast as he could, using his sword for defense as he approached the bloks. Aelita hovered over with her wings, waiting for her cue. Yumi followed closely behind William, making sure she had her fans ready when her time came. Odd was posted behind a tree, ready and aimed to fire at his target.

"Now!" William yelled, initiating his plan. He ducked as Yumi threw both of her fans, hitting the center blok, Aelita fired her energy field at the one on the left, hitting it in its confusion, and Odd fired two arrows at the blok on the right, hitting it both times. At the same moment, all three bloks exploded into loose code.

"Great plan William." Jeremy complimented, making William feel very accepted by the blond.

Aelita ran for the activated tower, entered through the blackened base and began to levitate up.

—

Ulrich was pinned down by a wall as the electric creature blocked him from going anywhere else. 'This is it!' He thought as the monster began to charge up it's lightening.

—

Aelita touched the terminal with her hand, causing her name to appear on the display, and finally it said "Code Lyoko".

"Return to the past now!" Jeremy yelled, pressing enter on his keyboard. A white bubble consumed everything in sight, sending them back in time.

—

"Eh hem." Mr. Delmas said through a microphone in the middle of the gym. "May I have your attention? I will now announce your homecoming king and queen as chosen by the students in this mornings vote." Mr. Delmas said, drawing all of the students attention on himself.

"Ulrich, did you do it?" Jeremy asked.

"Yeah, I got it done right after she left." Ulrich replied, a happy smirk on his face.

"For your queen, we have... Well, it would appear that my daughter Elizabeth has won queen. Please come over here darling." Mr. Delmas was actually fairly surprised by that, but was ready to continue as though it were anyone else.

"And for your king, we have Herb Pichon. Please come up both of you."

"What!" Sissi exclaimed in sheer horror. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Don't worry, Sissi, I'm a great dancer." Herb said, moving closer to Sissi. Sissi's eyes were red with anger, but her face was red with embarrassment.

Ulrich, Yumi, Aelita and Jeremy stood near the back corner of the gym, laughing harder than any joke ever told could accomplish.

Thanks for all the support. I will now start uploading every other day because, to be honest, I am overwhelmed by this and normally have to stay up till 12:30 writing, and my work is slipping in quality as a result, so I feel like this will be better for all of us. Thanks for the support, PM me with ideas!


	17. Ep 5 Ch 17: Conflict of Intreses

Episode 5: "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Yumi and William sat with their classmates in the gym, listening to Jim ramble on like he always does.

"Self-defense is not just moves and tactics, it's protection. At some point in your life, you may be forced to defend yourself." Jim's eyes gazed over his students, most of them sitting there half asleep. "Ishiyama, Dunbar, come up here and demonstrate self-defense techniques to the class."

William and Yumi got up from where they were sitting on the hardwood floor of the gym and moved to where Jim was standing.

"Okay, William here will be our attacker. Yumi will defend herself when William reaches out to grab her." Jim explained to the students.

"You ready?" William asked, getting in position.

"Ready when you are." Yumi responded, getting into position herself.

William reached out with both of his arms to grab Yumi, not being extremely intense in doing so, but just enough for it to look real. Yumi grabbed William's right arm and planted her fingers on the pressure point Jim had shown the class earlier. Yumi finished him off by lightly kicking a weak point in William's knee, causing him to begin to fall. William made one final effort to grab Yumi as he fell, almost as though he hoped he could pull himself back onto his feet, resulting in her falling with him.

Yumi was now on top of Wiliiam, pushing her upper body up with her arms. William from below gave her a faint smile, causing her to blush slightly.

"You okay?" Yumi asked, looking down at the black haired boy below her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." William said, his voice sweet and his smile caring. Yumi's already pink cheeks turned a darker shade.

"Great demonstration you two." Jim said, breaking the "moment", if you could call it one, between them. "Now, take your seats again."

Yumi stood up, offering her hand to William. When William was back on his feat, he gave a simple "Thanks", and they both sat back down, watching Jim demonstrate more self-defense moves.

—

Odd and Ulrich entered their dorm room, Ulrich quickly moving to his dresser.

"Come on, Ulrich, if we don't hurry up we'll miss lunch." Odd complained, his hands running his stomach. "If I don't eat I'll starve."

"Just give me a minute, Odd." Ulrich said. "I need to find my cell phone." Ulrich searched his dresser through and through, but came up short.

"Where did you leave it?" Odd asked, his stomach growling.

"I don't know, I could have sworn I had it with me at breakfast." Ulrich replied, baffled by his unexplained loss.

"Well, maybe if we go back to the cafeteria we can look for it, and if there just so happens to be food we could eat there too..." Odd said, his face one of desperation, but also of appreciation of what he had just said, hoping he would get food before it took over his thoughts totally.

"I get it, Odd. Fine, we can go." Ulrich said, closing the bottom drawer of his dresser.

"Great! Let's hurry, I don't want them to run out of mashed potatoes." Odd said, already halfway down the hallway.

"Odd, slow down!" Ulrich yelled, chasing after his energetic and hungry friend.

—

Jeremy sat at his computer in his dorm, running remotely off of the supercomputers processors. He had feuded to skip lunch and work on some small projects of his: William's own vehicle, a new multi-agent system able to create artificial land and objects on Lyoko, and searching for Aelita's father.

'Aelita would be happy to know I'm doing this.' Jeremy thought. 'I know she is worried about her father and holds out hope, but from initial reports... I just don't think it would make sense for him to be alive, but I could never tell her that.' Jeremy's thoughts made him more determined to look harder, wanting to keep Aelita happy and reunite her with her father.

Jeremy began working on a new scan program to search for any traces, but it would take him hours if not a couple of days to complete. 'Well, looks like I won't be getting sleep tonight.' Jeremy paused his thoughts for a moment. 'Oh, Franz, I hope you're out there, for Aelita's sake.'

—

"Odd, how can someone as scrawny as you run so fast?" Ulrich asked as both boys reached the cafeteria doors, both of them out of breath from the extreme sprint.

"Hey! I'm not scrawny, I'm svelte." Odd replied, causing Ulrich to laugh slightly as they walked in the doors.

"Rosa, how are you doing this fine day?" Odd asked, his tray as empty as his stomach, something he was hoping to change.

"Don't bother, Odd." Rosa said, looking down at the hungry student. "You don't have to play your little game with my today, somebody came by and said you could have their meal, some kinda agreement or something."

Odd's face was one of confusion, but he was overall excited over the situation. "I don't know what you're talking about, but as long as I get more food, I'm happy." As Odd finished, Rosa gave him second helpings of mashed potatoes, steak and gravy. Odd was in heaven as he slid his trey along the lunch line, his smile widening as he continued to move closer to his table where he could enjoy this random gift he had received.

When Odd finally sat down, Ulrich was close behind him, reminding him of their purpose here.

"Odd, we find my phone, then you can eat." Ulrich said in a slightly demanding tone while also not sounding extremely rude to his friend. Ulrich had already started looking when he heard Odd do something he often found easy to do: complain.

"But Ulrich," Odd said, his words stretched out as though to make his discomfort seem worse, "my food will get cold if I just leave it here. Can't you just look for it on your own?"

Ulrich saw no winning this argument, so he gave in before it started. "Fine, Odd. Eat your food, I'll look myself."

"Why are you so concerned about your phone anyway?" Odd asked, showing a spoonful of potatoes into his mouth.

"It's my phone, I need to have it in case someone needs to talk to me, if X.A.N.A. strikes..." Ulrich was cut off by Odd's half-full mouth speaking.

"You mean if Yumi texts you?" Odd asked, laughing over the red that appeared on Ulrich's face.

Thanks for all the support and with my posting change, hope this quality is an improvement on my dead tired writing. Read and review, thanks!


	18. Cooking

Ulrich laid on his bed, Odd parallel to him doing the same. Ulrich's expression was one of boredom, his mind off somewhere random. The boys had just finished their last class of the day and were ready to enjoy their weekend off, but had no idea what to do or where to go.

"Maybe we can go see if that new theatre a couple blocks from here is open." Odd said, opening the floor for ideas.

"It won't be open until Thursday." Ulrich said, moving his head to face Odd. "I told you that an hour ago."

"Oh. We could go to the convenience store and get some candy and stuff." Odd said, his mind perpetually focused on food.

"What are you, five?" Ulrich asked in a sarcastic tone.

"No, I'm hungry."

Ulrich cracked a slight smile, humored by his friends words. "Odd, you're always hungry."

"I know, but..."

*Knock* *Knock*

Odd and Ulrich were caught off guard, not expecting visitors.

"Hey, Odd, Ulrich, you in here?" They both knew who it was instantly.

"Hey, come in." Odd said, turning so he was now sitting on the side of his bed.

The door opened with a slight creak to reveal a slightly smirking William standing outside their room.

"Hey, what's up?" Ulrich asked.

"You guys got any plans for tonight?" William asked.

"No, not really. So far we've just been laying here wondering what we are gonna do." Odd replied, Kiwi jumping into his lap as he spoke.

"Well, wonder no more. I got three tickets to the new _Alien Invader_ movie downtown." William said, pulling the tickets out of his pocket and waving them in the air.

"Ah man, how did you get those? The show sold out like thirty minutes after they started selling tickets." Odd said in amazement, never thinking he would see it on opening night.

"I have some... connections. If you guys want to go, then we probably need to head out. The movie starts in like another hour." William said, Ulrich already putting his jacket back in that he had only taken off minutes before.

—

Aelita sat behind the large monitors of the supercomputer, typing rapidly. She was greatly concerned over her father, causing her to work excessively to try and find him. Her nightmares had progressively gotten worse over the last few days, sometimes keeping her up the entire night. After finishing the line of code she was working on, she turned her head to the elevator which had just begun opening.

"Aelita, what's up?" Jeremy asked, walking out of the large elevator and towards her. "You didn't say much about what you needed in your text."

"I'm just working to find my father. I tried finishing this program on my own, but I couldn't get past this line." Aelita said, pointing to the line of code that was causing her so much grief.

Jeremy closely examined the code, thought for a second and said, "I'm not sure what to do there. It looks like you would need a repeating process evaluator, but that wouldn't work because of how much data it would have to sift through."

"Well, what are we going to do?" Aelita asked, her voice slightly annoyed.

"I'm not sure, I don't think there's a way around in, but I'm not certain." Jeremy said, still evaluating the problem.

"Well, which is it? Can you do it or not!" Aelita raised her voice and stared towards a now concerned looking Jeremy.

"Aelita... are you okay?" Jeremy asked, his voice quiet as he was slightly shaken by her earlier tone.

Aelita had to think about what she had just said for a moment. She had no intent on upsetting Jeremy, hardly understanding why she got angry towards him.

"I'm sorry... It's just, my father. I can't stop thinking about wether or not he's alive. I just want him to be alive, I want to still have a father. My nightmares have been getting worse and I haven't been getting any sleep."

"Aelita, I understand," Jeremy said, leaning closer to her, "but you can't let this dominate your life. We are doing everything we can, I've got my starter program already searching and I'm sure we can figure this one out too." A tear rolled off Aelita's face. "Aelita, don't worry about this now. Go to your room, take a nap. Let me deal with this."

Aelita wasn't sure what to say. Should she insist on helping work on the program or help her sleep deprived self by getting some rest?

"Okay, I guess you're right. I'll head back to my room." Aelita said, hopping out of the chair, allowing Jeremy to take her place.

"I'll text you if I find anything." Jeremy said, looking over at his pink haired angel with a smile. "Don't worry, Aelita, we'll get through this, I promise."

Aelita entered the elevator and turned to face Jeremy with a smile. "Thank you, Jeremy." Her hand pressed the large red button, sending the elevator up the shaft.

—

Yumi sat in her family's living room, her phone on her lap.

"I just don't think we need any extra channels." Mr. Ishyama said, his voice stern is saying so. "We get the news, that's all we need."

"Well what if I want to watch some cooking channels? Maybe I could cook better food for us?" Mrs. Ishiyama's argument was well placed in her mind, but not in her husbands.

"Better food isn't worth the $90 it would cost a month to get a new box." Yumi's father got up from his seat and began walking away. "This argument is over and that's final."

Yumi's mom stood up as well, following her husband. "Your father, never able to hold a conversation without finding something to get mad about." Mrs. Ishiyama said to Yumi just before she exited the room.

Yumi hadn't payed much attention to their conversation. She had a worried look on her face as she stared at her phone.

'It's been three hours, why hasn't he texted me?' She thought, leaving she mind to consider a few ideas as to why he hadn't. 'Maybe it's a X.A.N.A. attack?' She thought, but quickly found it unlikely, or at least hoped it wasn't. 'I hope he's alright.'

Yumi's thoughts went on like this for a few minutes, her mind only thinking of Ulrich. What she thought about it, that's honestly what she already did. Ulrich was one of the most important things to her in the world, and so she was quick to worry for him. What she didn't know was that the time to be worried wouldn't truly come until later.

Thanks for all the support, keep up the good work you guys! This episode is honestly one of my favorites to write, and you will see why in the next couple of days.


	19. Public Disturbance

Ulrich sat in the dark plastic chair, one of many in the rows and columns of the theatre. His eyes were covered by the darkly tinted glasses on his face, allowing him to see the 3D movie. He sat between William and Odd, both of which were enjoying the movie more than he was. Ulrich couldn't stop thinking about his phone, more importantly the fact that he had forgotten to tell Yumi that he had lost his phone. 'What if she gets mad? If she thinks I'm ignoring her she won't talk to me.' Ulrich thought, his mind falling into its usual cycle of worry.

"Ulrich!" Odd exclaimed, his volume causing many to look at him with activated eyes and raised brows. "Look at how realistic that alien is. It's almost like I can just reach out and grab it." Odd said, his arm stretched far enough ahead of him for the couple in front of him to notice.

"Come on, Odd, this is a movie theatre. You can't do whatever you want in here." William said, attempting to avoid any more distractions as he was deeply involved in the movie's plot.

"If he doesn't listen in Ms. Hertz class, he won't listen here." Ulrich said in a quiet voice, laughing slightly after doing so.

"I would be quiet, but this movie is amazing!" Odd's voice even louder than the first time.

A manager walked into the screening room, flashlight in hand, and moved to where the noise was coming from.

"Excuse me, but I have received multiple reports that there is a blond haired boy being distractive in the theatre. Would that happen to be you?" The manager asked Odd, already knowing the answer yet wanting to give him a chance to confess to his disruption.

"No, sir, I haven't heard any disturbances the entire movie, except for when you came in. And with all due respect, I feel like I should get a refund for having my movie interrupted." Odd's voice stank with confidence much as onions do on your breath, splashing on the managers face in waves.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the theatre at once, this is your only warning." The manager said, his main concern the enjoyment of his customers. 'This kid is good, if I didn't know it was him, I would have believed him.' The manager thought as he awaited a response.

"Hey, man, just let him stay. We paid good money for this movie!" William protested, bringing the manager's face to an expression best filled with the color red: anger.

The manager pointed to the three boys with his flashlight, not worrying about how bright it might be in their adolescent eyes.

"You three, get out of my establishment this instant!" Ulrich was the first to stand and get up, walking right past the manager. Odd and William reluctantly followed, the manager escorting them personally from behind.

As the boys exited the screening room, Odd jumped slightly, stating, "Guys, I left my glasses in there."

"The 3D glasses?" Ulrich asked. "What do you need them for?"

"I just like them, okay?" Odd said, pushing the door, allowing him passage back into the screening room. His initial sight of the area showed the manager's face, causing Odd to tense up slightly.

"Don't worry, I'm just going back to get my..." Odd paused, taking a closer look at the man. His face appeared grey, his clothes tinted a grey shade and his body was in an immobile state, as though someone had replaced him with a perfect stone replica.

Odd also noticed what appeared to be an expanding, well, he had no idea what it was. He took note of its shape, a curved wall of grey tint.

"What tha?..." Odd began, interrupted when he felt an extreme pain in the front of his foot, the grey wall having passed over the tips of his toes and was now moving closer towards him. He tried moving, putting his entire body into it, but he couldn't break free from the ghostly wall which lay it's grasp around his foot.

"Odd, what's taking so lo..." Ulrich saw his friend struggling and, with his heightened reflexes due to his time fighting X.A.N.A., instantly ran to help him.

"What is this thing?" Ulrich asked, his arms wrapped around Odd's body, attempting to force him out.

"I don't know!" Odd yelled, the wall moving to cover an ever growing amount of his foot.

Ulrich and Odd pulled as hard as they could, their backbones popping as they put an extreme amount of pressure on them. After a fierce twenty seconds of pulling, Odd flew back, landing on Ulrich who had already hit the ground.

Odd looked down at his still aching foot, almost all of the color drained, leaving behind a grey shading. He also noticed that he couldn't move any of his toes on the affected foot on his left.

"X.A.N.A." Ulrich said, catching his breath. The two boys bolted out of the doors, using any existing fumes of energy as they had already drained tier tanks pulling Odd away from the anomaly.

"Did you find your glasses?" William asked, confused by his friends exhausted expressions.

"No time, X.A.N.A. attack." Odd said, showing William his foot.

"What's happening?" William asked, unsure of what to make of Odd's foot.

"We don't know, but we gotta get to the factory, now!" Ulrich urged.

—

Jeremy's head was gently resting on his keyboard, his mouth slightly open, dripping saliva down his cheek. His snore echoed throughout the metal room, his glasses lifted slightly off his nose by the angle in which he was on the keyboard.

*RING* *RING* *RING* *RING*

Jeremy abruptly had his nap cut short by a ringing coming from his headset. He had only heard the last ring, sleeping through the first few. His eyes peered at the caller ID from the missed call, squinting at the luminescent screen in front of him.

"Odd, what could he want?" He said aloud, wiping the drool from his face.

*RING* *RING*

Jeremy hit a few keys and answered the call.

"Odd, what's up?" Jeremy's voice was groggy, something that would wear off quickly, him being used to a lack of sleep.

"It's Ulrich, X.A.N.A. has made some kind of, well, we don't know. A bubble maybe? That's not the point, it attacked Odd, freezing his foot almost like it was stone." The urgency in Ulrich's voice wasn't instantly recognized by the tired blond on the other line.

"That doesn't make sense, I didn't get an alert from the superscan." Jeremy typed frantically, unsure how this had happened.

"We're on our way to the factory, call the others." Ulrich said, hanging up the phone.

Jeremy looked around through many files Trying to figure this whole thing out when he noticed a running program that he hadn't started.

'What's this?' He thought looking at the program. 'Is this... a modification of the return to the past program?'

Thanks for the support! Next chapter will be intense, and also much longer than some of the others in this episode. Keep up the good work viewers, thanks!


	20. Where There's a Will

Yumi was stretched out on the couch in her family room, having fallen asleep just a few minutes ago, her phone clenched in her right hand. Her breathing was quiet, not so much as to be unheard, but at a soothing volume, almost calming if someone were to hear it.

Her phone sprang to life, vibrating repeatedly in her hand, awakening her from the intrinsic slumber. Her response was quick, one out of excitement in hope of who the caller was.

"Ulrich?" Yumi asked, her body moving to sit up on the couch, speaking with a smile on her face, her voice excited.

"What? No, Yumi, this is Jeremy." Her smile fell fasted than a metal ball dropped from a tall structure, although her composure was regained in seconds. "We have a problem, it's X.A.N.A., get to the factory ASAP."

"Got it, Jeremy. Do you need me to call Aelita?" Yumi asked,  
Already heading towards her door.

"No, I already called her. Just get here quick, whatever X.A.N.A. is doing, it's headed your way." Jeremy said, looking through news reports on his monitor.

"I got it, I'll be there as soon as I can." Yumi said, hanging up the phone, making her way to the door. As she approached the door, her arm outstretched to turn the knob, Hiroki jumped in front of the aperture, a slick smile on his face.

"Where are you going?" He asked, Yumi could have sworn she smelt annoyance on his breath as he spoke.

"None of you business, Hiroki." She said, again reaching for the door.

Hiroki pulled a phone out of his pocket and wagged it in Yumi's face. "If you leave, I'll show everyone I know what you and Ulrich talk about."

Yumi was slightly shocked, but her outward expression wouldn't allow that to pass through. "How did you get Ulrich's phone?"

"I found it in the lunchroom, I figured it would come in handy, and I guess I was right." As he said this, Yumi filled with rage, her eyes, although not physically turning red, were plastered with an unforgettable and unmistakeable look of pure anger.

"Hiroki, you have three seconds to move out of the way so I can open the door, or I will use you to open it, understand?" Her voice was serious, Hiroki realizing he has passes the line just a bit on this one.

"Okay, okay, I'll move." Hiroki said, moving aside, his expression one of annoyance in its own right, not able to comprehend the fullness of the situation.

Yumi moved to the door and opened it with a forceful pull from her right arm. "And if you read any more of my conversation, I swear..." Yumi said, her thought unfinished as she violently slammed the door behind her.

—

"Scanner Odd, scanner Ulrich, scanner William."

"Transfer Odd, transfer Ulrich, transfer William."

"Virtualization!"

The three boys landed on their feet, the flat grey ground of the Mountain Sector welcoming them.

"You guys ready?" Aelita asked, her wings already deployed as she had been waiting for them.

Odd peered down at his foot, still unable to move it. "Jeremy, looks like my foot is still frozen here too."

"I've been looking into that. It appears X.A.N.A. has manipulated the return to the past program and made it into a bubble that, instead of reversing time, it freezes time within the bubble." Jeremy said, still filtering through files, beginning to program the vehicles.

"Well, that explains a lot." Odd said, sarcasm flowing from his voice.

"I'm sending you your vehicles. William, I finally finished yours, I call it the Override, it's kinda like a mix between Odd's board and Ulrich's bike, but with its own style."

The Override's base appears very similar to Odd's Overboard, with similar shape and size, but with extenders on the bottom connecting to two large wheels, making it similar to Ulrich's Overbike. It had a white/grey base color with black stripes scattered here and there. The design took Jeremy a few days to come up with, but he was very proud of his work.

"It looks great, Jeremy, but how do I ride it?" William asked, jumping into the board base.

"It's an interesting design, you will stand on it as though it were a surfboard, and you use your body to control it's movement and speed. Move forward and it will speed up, backward and it will slow down. The harder you lean left or right will determine which direction and at what angle you will turn." Jeremy explained, taking the concept from an article he read online.

William leaned his body forward, moving the vehicle ahead. He took a few seconds to become familiar with it before he was satisfied.

"Let's roll." William said, zooming ahead, the others following behind him as their vehicle arrived. His vehicle had impressive speeds, both on ground and in the air, having many of the qualities of all three vehicles Jeremy had made prior.

As the warriors came within sight of the tower, Jeremy spoke up.

"Two bloks and tarantula." Jeremy said, his eyes focused on the newly appearing characters his screen displayed, the red reflecting off his glasses.

"Okay, I think we should..." Ulrich started, cut off by a louder voice.

"Geronimo!" William yelled, moving his vehicle forward, it being in tight unison with his body. He held his blade in both hands, jumping from his vehicle as he reached his destination. His blade slashed through the top eye of the left blok, causing it to fragment in a flash. The tarantula took aim as William ran towards it. William was able to dodge most of the shots from the monster, until about halfway through his sprint he was hit in the leg. His reaction was limited, only stopping for what seemed like half a second before he again broke into a heated spring, his feet hitting the ground with a continuous and almost rhythmic pattern.

His blade slammed into the monster, holding it in the air for a few seconds before it was also destroyed. As William jumped to destroy the final blok, he was beaten to the job by a pair or smaller swords thrown into the side of the blok as it tried to fire.

"What was that!" Ulrich yelled, walking over to retrieve his swords. "You can't just run off before we make a plan!"

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" William responded, taking this lightly.

"You can't just go off and do that, it puts all of us and every person out there in danger." Ulrich said, looking into William's eyes with a stare of daggers.

"You need to..." William was interrupted by three lasers hitting him in his legs and back, devirtualizing him. Ulrich turned in time to deflect one of the lasers from the three hornets, hitting it, but was quickly overtaken by the other two.

"Guys, the bubble is about to reach the factory. No rush, but time is of the essence." Jeremy said, watching a reported display the growth of the bubble on the news.

The elevator doors opened, causing Jeremy's head to turn.

—

Ulrich and William both exited their scanners, William walking out with a certain amount of swagger, but not overdoing it. Ulrich, on the other hand, took a few moments to regain himself and stand up.

"How could you just leave your team like that?" Ulrich asked, his voice raised.

"Leave my team? You must be kidding, I defeated the monsters, quick and easy." William said, looking over at Ulrich as he walked out of his scanner.

"You just ran in so you could be, oh, I don't know, some kind of hero. William the Great, is that what you were trying to be?"

"Ulrich, I get you, I understand you. You aren't mad about this, this wouldn't make you the jerk you are acting like now. So, what is it? What's wrong?" William asked, his voice not lacking I'm concern, but not so much as to make it openly apparent.

"You know exactly what's wrong." Ulrich replied, looking down slightly, as though to show hesitation.

"Enlighten me." William said, arms crossed.

"...fine..., you are always with Yumi, you know how much I love her, but you are always there, flirting with her, stoping me from talking to her, making me look weak. Since day one you have been nothing but a challenge to me and you enjoy doing it!" Ulrich was releasing his built up anger as though it were an overflowing dam, bursting through with a torrent of rage and emotion.

"Ulrich, let me set a few things straight." William said, sighing before he spoke again. "I'll admit, I've had strong feelings for Yumi since I got here, and yeah, I knew you were trying for her too, but at the time I guess I just didn't care. But recently, as I came to know you and the rest of the gang better, as you accepted me, I started to see things differently. I understand how much you feel for Yumi, how you care for her, respect her, love her. That's why, recently, I have decided to allow you to have her. Not because I don't love her, because I do, but for different reasons." William paused, unable to muster up the words for a moment. "I gave up on Yumi because I know the consequences if we fail on Lyoko. I don't want any drama or hate to stop us from doing what we have to do, and that is beat X.A.N.A. every time, no exceptions. I also gave up because, well, I respect you. You are a good leader, great athlete, and most of all a great friend. These past few weeks I have gotten to know you pretty well, and you are a pretty cool dude. So, see this as my thank you gift for believing in me enough to let me get in that scanner ever time, for fighting by my side, and for letting me help you guys do what we do best, save the world. Yumi loves you, not me, I could figure that out on my own. Never waste a moment with her, okay?"

Ulrich was short on words, trying to lock up his emotions in the back of his mind. Ulrich finally knew what to say after twenty seconds of silence.

"When I first met you, I thought you were the biggest jerk in the world." Ulrich stuck his arm out, aimed at William. "I was wrong."

William reached out and shook Ulrich's hand, their eyes locked, having a new found respect and trust for each other.

What neither of them had noticed during their talk was the elevator descending, a stunned Yumi watching through the whole conversation, a tear rolling its way down her cheek.

The while bubble of a return to the past passed over them, Aelita having just finished deactivating the tower.  
What the return to the past couldn't send back was the respect that would forever linger in the air of the scanner room, an eternal reminder of what had happened that day.

—

Yumi approached her friends, all of which were huddled around a column in the schools courtyard. Her mind was still thinking through what she had heard, proud of what she had witnessed her friends do.

"Hey, Yumi." Ulrich said, smiling a bold morning smile, the morning sun giving his skin a slightly darker shade. "I'm sorry I didn't text you earlier, I think I lost my phone."

Yumi reached into her book bag and, after rummaging around a bit, found the electronic hunk of plastic.

"Hiroki found it earlier, here." Yumi said, handing Ulrich his phone.

"Thanks, Yumi." Ulrich said, both their cheeks turning red as their hands touched.

"Hey, Ulrich, how about we skip the movie, since we've already seen it, and play another phooseball tournament tonight?" William asked, looking over at Ulrich.

"Sure, but I doubt you'll win." Ulrich said, a cocky yet sarcastic smile appearing on his face.

"Would you like to bet on that, lover boy?" William said, causing everyone but Ulrich and Yumi to laugh, their reaction was not of their choice, their cheeks turning so red that the others were surprised Odd didn't make a joke about tomatoes.

And between Ulrich and William, a new bond was born, a bond that shall be tested in the future.

Thanks for all the support! 2000 words! This was honestly my favorite chapter to write, so I hope you enjoyed it. Review!


	21. Episode 6 When it Rains-Oddity

Odd lies on his bed, snoring loudly, the obnoxious noise echoing over the walls of the room. His head is turned to face the door, his hair seemingly untouched by his nightly movements, tossing and turning as he dreamt.

Kiwi pushed the dresser open and stood up, his resting place still warm from the heat of his small body. Kiwi shook, knocking off any remaining need to sleep, waking him up fully. He whimpered slightly, moving over to his masters arm which was hanging from the bed. He stuck out his pink tinted tongue and began to lick Odd's hand, his pace transforming from slow to a more rapid pace as the seconds passed.

"Emm..." Odd moaned as he awoke, his head in a great deal of pain. He moved his hand to feel his head, his reaction instant as he felt his wet palm.

"Kiwi, I'm not in the mood." He voiced through his groggy and pain filled mind. He looked over towards Ulrich's bed, noticing it to be empty. In a panic, Odd frantically reached out for his alarm clock to determine the time.

'Hmm, I'm not late, it's actually kinda early. Where could Ulrich be?' He thought, placing the clock back down on as turned his body upright. Kiwi sat, his tail wagging as he look up at Odd.

"Don't worry, Kiwi, I'll come by and bring you bacon if I have time." He said, scratching Kiwi's head where he enjoined it most, just behind his left ear and to the right. Odd stood up, again grabbing for his head which pounded with pain, as though his brain was attempting a prison break from its boney cell.

"Man, what's wrong with my head this morning?" Odd said aloud, not expecting any answer from the inanimate objects of his room. Kiwi yelped, looking at his master with large and caring eyes, at least that's how Odd interpreted them.

"Oh, Kiwi, your the best diggity dog in the world." Odd said, grabbing a towel and his usual attire. He walked out the door, the aching in his mind progressively intensifying. He walked down the hall until he reached the shower room door. Just as he began to reach for the door handle, it swung open, Ulrich standing by the open entrance, his hair still glistening from his shower as he didn't dry it well.

"Hey, whatcha doin' getting ready so early?" Odd asked, moving out of the way so Ulrich could enter the hall.

"Just wanted to get an early start today. To be honest, I'm not really sure why, I just felt like getting ready early." Ulrich replied, still trying to figure out why he had a desire to get ready so early.

"Well, I gotta take a shower. Enjoy all your extra time, use it wisely." Odd said sarcastically as he walked into the shower room. Ulrich began walking back to their room, brushing off his strange feeling this morning as just being nothing.

—

Ulrich, Aelita, Odd and Jeremy sit in Ms. Hertz's Class, taking notes over osmosis and cell diffusion, except for Odd who planned to ask Jeremy for his notes later.

"Remember, hyperbolic means the cell shrinks, hypobolic means the cell grows." Ms. Hertz said, gazing over her class, her pointer stick in hand. "After lunch we will be taking our trip with the rest of my classes to the forest downtown to study diffusion in plant cells. Don't be late, the buses will leave at 1:00 o'clock on the dot. Any questions?"

Odd raised his hand, leaning forward slightly against the lab table.

"Yes, Odd, what's your question?"

"Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to have the class look at salads instead of going all the way to the forest to look at the same thing?" Odd asked, his voice steady as he spoke.

Ms. Hertz gave Odd a look, not of anger, but of total confusion. "Odd, sometimes I wonder if you have a brain up there." The class laughed a little, but this quickly ended when Ms. Hertz eyes formed a deadly stare towards her children. Now then, are their any legitimate questions?"

The room was silent, not many of the students cared enough to ask any questions.

*Ring* *Ring* *Ring*

The students rose from their seats as the bell rang, signaling the beginning of lunch.

"Hey, Jeremy, can I borrow your notes?" Odd asked, following his blond friend out the door.

"Odd, you had a whole class period to get the notes." Jeremy replied. "If I give you these notes, then you'll never be able to do them for yourself and you'll be begging me to do everything for you."

Odd tried to make up an excuse, then realizing he didn't need a fake excuse, he was actually in pain. "I have a bad headache, I couldn't take the notes."

Jeremy looked over at Odd, Odd's eyes appearing so desperate, Jeremy couldn't handle it. "Fine, just get them from me tonight."

Odd decided to test his luck. "Hey, could I copy your math homework too?"

"Odd, don't ask questions you already know the answer to." Jeremy replied, his voice not strict, not said in a similar tone.

"So, that's a yes?" Odd asked, trying to act confused even though he did already know the answer.

"Odd, give it a rest." Ulrich said, having overheard the last few sentences of the conversation. "We can just study the math together tonight."

"Thank you, Ulrich." Jeremy said, his mood brightening up slightly.

"Okay, next on the agenda:" Odd said, his mouth watering, "lunch."

—

Yumi walked into the lunchroom, almost tripping in the top step, but quickly regaining her balance. She noticed her friends over at their usual table, Jeremy, Aelita and Odd on one side with William and Ulrich on the reverse end.

As she made her way over she noticed Odd's tray was loaded with extra helpings of nearly everything. "What'd you tell Rosa to get her to give you this much food?" Yumi asked, arriving at the table.

"I don't know who, but someone just left me their servings." Odd replied, taking in a large spoonful of mashed potatoes.

"Don't you find it, I don't know, strange that someone randomly left you their food?" Yumi asked, a brow raised towards Odd.

"Don't look a gift horse on the mouth." Odd said, his mouth full of assorted foods.

"Speaking of horses," Aelita said, "it looks like you're trying to eat one." Aelita said, causing the others to laugh.

"If that's true, then this is the best tasting horse ever." Odd said, just encouraging more laughter from the others.

Thanks for all the continued support! Read and review, updates every other day. Over 1500 views! Keep up the good work.


	22. Aches and Pains

Ulrich stands by the loading area for the buses, his back leaning against a large support beam made of differently shaded red bricks. He watched his fellow classmate enter the bus, waiting for Yumi who minutes earlier went to the bathroom.

"Ulrich!" Ms. Hertz called, leaning from the entrance of the bus. "Get on the bus!" Her voice was demanding, but not in an angry way, rather in a more relating way, much in the way you feel when you are given a command by a teacher, you expect the demanding tone.

"I'm sure Yumi's almost..." Yumi walked up beside him, smiling slightly at his surprised look.

"Both of you, hurry! The sooner we get there the longer we can stay." Ms. Hertz re-entered the bus, sitting down at the front seat next to Jim. He was looking through an exercise magazine, reading an article entitle "Connecting to a Younger Generation Through Fitness".

"Jim, are you going to use these ideas with your students?" Ms. Hertz asked, glancing over the subheadings of the article.

"No, I'm sending this to my father." Jim replied, tilting the magazine slightly.

"Why are you doing that?" She asked, looking as Ulrich and Yumi entered the bus.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Jim said, closing his book and turning to the students, standing over them.

"Now I know you think this will be all fun, a day in the forest, the birds chirping and the wind blowing, but we need to set a few rules. Number one: don't wonder off too far from the buses. The last thing we need is someone getting lost. Number two: no goofing off. This is a public park, meaning other people will be there. You kids will represent Kadic Academy through everything you do, so don't be stupid." Jim gazed over at Odd, who had miraculous fallen asleep in the maybe five minutes he had been on the bus. Jim walked over to where Odd lie resting, raised his hands and clapped them together, the thunderous bang bouncing off the walls of the bus like a hyper child.

Odd's eyes burst open as he jumped, his body hovering out of his seat for a good five seconds before it relaxed in the slightest.

"Now then," Jim said, moving back to the front of the bus, "number three: stay with your partner. If you lose sight of your partner, report back to the bus. Everyone understand? And questions?" Jim looked around the bus for a second, and, after not noticing any hands, began to turn back around to sit in his seat. As he nearly reached his seat, he heard a voice from behind him.

"Jim," Odd said, his hand raised as the gym teacher turned around to look at him. "Can I go to the infirmary, my head is killing me."

Jim looked at him, considering whether or not to believe him, eventually deciding to go along with it. "Okay, who's your partner?"

"I am, sir." William said, his hand raising into the air.

"Dunbar, take Della Robbia to the infirmary." Jim said, Ms. Hertz whispering something into his ear. "Oh, it seems we have to leave now. Are you fine with missing the field trip?"

"Yeah, I guess." William said, walking up to meet Odd at the front of the bus.

"I'll have an assignment you two can do later, for now just stay with him in the infirmary." Ms. Hertz said, watching the two walk out of the bus. "Now then, let's get moving." Ms. Hertz said, the driver starting the bus forward. "Can anyone tell me what osmosis is?" She asked as the bus exited the school gate.

—–—

Yolanda walked over to the bed, her lab coat freshly cleaned and ironed, something she was always proud of. She looked down at Odd, pulled the thermometer out of his mouth, looking quite cheerful for the results.

"Well, you don't have a temperature, that's good. When did your headaches start?" She asked, wagging the thermometer in the air as a way to clean it before she grabbed a cloth and cleaned it thoroughly.

"It started when I woke up this morning, it's gotten worse sense." Odd said. He could have sworn his head had a heart beat, pumping through and through, causing him to feel great pain.

"Well, here's what I'll do. I'll give you this pill that should help your headache, and if it doesn't help after about an hour, come back and I'll see what I can do." She said, reaching into her medicine cabinet. She grabbed a small bottle, popped it open and gave Odd two pills from it. She placed the two pills on a table, grabbing a cup, and moved over the the sink. She filled the cup about half full and handed it to Odd saying: "Here, this should help. If your headache persists, we can try this again in about twelve hours."

"Okay, I hope it works." Odd said, the first pill in, gulped, and  
repeated the process for the second pill.

"Do you mind stating for another hour or so? I need to make sure you don't have a reaction to the medicine." She closed her medicine cabinet and sat down on the corner of the bed.

"Sure, we were supposed to go on field trip anyway, so I don't think timing matters very much." Odd replied, reaching for his head as he tried to lean forward.

"Just rest, it'll help you feel better. William, you can go now if you want." Yolanda said, looking over towards the raven haired boy sitting in a chair in the back corner of the room.

William looked up to her with a faint smile, explaining his situation. "I'll just stay with him, I don't have anything better to do." William looked out the window, gaining the attention of the nurse.

"William, what are you looking at?" She asked, already turning to look in that direction.

"It's kinda strange, Ms. Hertz said it was supposed to be really sunny all day, but it looks like it's pouring outside." William said, his head slightly tilted in confusion as he looked out the window.

Sorry if the quality isn't as good as usual, I was very tired writing this, but next couple of chapters are gonna be really interesting. Thanks for all the support,'it means a lot to me. Read and review!


	23. Our River has Run Dry

Yumi peered out the bus window, her view mostly blocked by rips in the plastic covering of the window and it's tint, but she could still see the onslaught of water the drowned the ground below. Sheet upon thick sheet of rain fell from the sky, not showing and signs of letting up. The sky was not black as you would see with a thunderstorm, but an eerie shade of grey that seemed to drain the color from all it surrounded.

"Class, I know we've been sitting here for almost an hour," Ms. Hertz said, looking over her classes that were seated on the bus, "but I've talked to a few of the teachers on the other buses and they said they think the storm may be over soon. That means we may be in the bus for a little while longer, so don't get out of control."

The children went back to their business, leaving behind the attentive listeners that had existed only seconds ago, hoping for some way off the lackluster bus.

"Hey, Yumi." Ulrich said, looking over her with a lighthearted gaze. "When do you think this rain will be over?"

Yumi's eyes were fixated on the strange weather, it's sudden intensity perplexing her. "I don't know, Ulrich. I don't know."

—

William sits in the uncomfortably metal chair of the infirmary, his head tilted over his shoulder as his echoing snores bounce off the walls of the room, his eyes sealed shut by their own weight.

Odd had been sleeping for the past hour, the rain at first soothing, but now it had woken him as though the storm was playing good-cop-bad-cop with him. He turned his body on its side, the sheets of the bed ruffling as he moved.

'William is out cold. Should have guessed he could sleep through anything after he told us about that one time in gym...'

Odd's thoughts were interrupted by a great crash, causing him to abruptly turn on his opposite side, his jaw left hanging by what he saw. The window had totally shattered, pieces of glass left to linger the floor, almost resembling blank marbles to him. A great burst of air hit him as though he had just jumped from an airplane, his body falling back and off the bed, not having predicted the great force that would fall upon it.

"AAHHHHHH!" Odd yelled as he fell over, his body coming closer to the ground in what felt like slow motion. William jumped at the sound, finally realizing what was happening. Through the wind, Odd could have sworn he heard William yell his name. It wasn't long after when Odd could feel his head slam into the hard tile floor, the almost numbing effect it seemed to have. He tried to hold on, but he could feel his mind fading. He tried forcefully to open his eyes, hardly cracking them. Through his limited vision, he saw William crouched over him, either inspecting him for injury or maybe protecting him, but Odd couldn't be sure.

He couldn't hold any longer. His eyes closed almost as slowly as they had opened, but now instead of being accompanied by force, a certain peace fell upon Odd. Then only one thing could be felt:

Darkness.

—

Jeremy and Aelita had been sitting with their classmates for over two hours, waiting for something, anything, to happen. That had discussed usual topics, partial physics, time travel, even some progress on designs for a new Nav Skid, but there wasn't anything set in stone yet.

"Jeremy, what do you think caused this sudden rainstorm? There weren't any low pressure systems over our area at all today, and there still aren't any. And the forecast for all week was supposed to be sunny, it just doesn't make sense." Aelita said, looking out the side window of the bus, the rain starting to majorly accumulate now, reaching almost halfway up the tires.

"I don't know either, it's really strange. I would check on the weather, but I forgot my laptop and my phone hasn't gotten service for an hour. I guess the towers are off or something." Jeremy said, reaching for Aelita's hand. "But don't worry, we'll be fine." He smiled at her, a smile which was mirrored by Aelita.

Aelita turned away from him after a few seconds, again looking out at the ominous storm.

"Excuse me, students." Ms. Hertz said, only gaining the attention of about half the bus. "Students!" She yelled, her voice not only loud and aggressive, but delivered with great projection, causing all of the students to drop what they were doing and look at her. "We have gotten word that they are starting to move the kids back at Kadic to their storm areas. It would appear that this storm may be worse than we thought, so we will be heading back to the school to join them where it's safe."

As she finished speaking, the bus was filled with phrases uttered by confused and worried children. "How bad is the storm?" One asked. "How much is it gonna rain?" Asked another. "Is school cancelled?" Asked another, one of many if not all the students.

"Students! Calm down!" Ms. Hertz yelled in a similar fashion as before, showing similar results as well. "We will answer any questions you may have when we get back, but for now I'm going to have to ask you to quiet down."

Jim walked over to Ms. Hertz and handed her his cellphone, saying, "You may wanna hear this." His voice alarmed if not stunned.

"Hello?" She asked, her voice sounding as though she was unsure what to make of this. She talked for a couple of minutes, ended the call and slowly handed the phone to Jim, looking over towards the bus driver.

"We need to leave now!" She said, her voice urgent and fearful.

"What's the matter?" The driver asked, looking ahead as he pressed his foot on the gas peddle.

"We may have a dangerous situation, go ahead and tell the other buses to leave too." She replied, the urgency, if at all possible, increasing in her voice.

The driver picked up his radio, asking her, "What should I tell them? What's the danger?" His face, although she couldn't see it, was perplexed, fearful as well. Her intensity worrying him.

"The local news stations have been getting reports that all the rivers are overflowing, and we are right in the danger zone." She said, the tragic words she said were almost as though she were the principal telling her this information a minute ago, sharing the same worry as he had.

The driver almost let up on the gas slightly, taken aback by the situation. He picked up his radio and said, "Jim, Lacy, we got a bit of a problem."

Thanks for all the support, the suspense is even killing me, and I'm the one writing it. Read and review!


	24. Bright Light

William made his way out of the infirmary, Odd fastened loosely on his right shoulder as he walked. The wind howled behind him, the noise becoming quieter as he left the room and entered into the hall, but still ever-present, as though it were looking over him, reminding him of the hopelessness of the situation.

William placed Odd on the ground, his shoulder in pain from the weight it had just carried.

"Odd, can you hear me?" William asked, looking at the unconscious boy. As the wind grew louder outside, so did he. "Odd, wake up! We gotta get out of here!" He tried to wake his friend through speech for minutes before giving up. He couldn't go and get help, that would mean leaving Odd here alone.

He thought for a few moments before he was interrupted by his phone vibrating in his pocket. William instinctively pulled the phone from his pocket and looked at the caller ID: Jeremy.

"Hello?" William asked, a custom that continued through the ages even with caller ID.

"Finally!" Jeremy said, his voice full of excitement and accomplishment. "I thought the phone lines were down for good. I've been trying to get through to you or Odd for the last few minutes. I think this freak storm is X.A.N.A.'s doing. I need you to get to the factory with Odd."

"There's a problem with that. Odd is knocked out, he hit his head earlier. I tried carrying him, but I guess he's not as scrawny as we thought." William said, turning to look at Odd. "Also, the sewers must be overflowing. How am I supposed to get to the factory?"

"I guess I hadn't thought of that." Jeremy thought for a moment, leaving the line eerily blank. "Oh, you could go..."

Silence. William sat through the quiet for a couple of seconds before saying, "Jeremy, you there?" No reply. He pulled the phone away from his ear and noticed an error message, reading, "CALL DROPPED. REDIAL?". William tried redialing the number, but all he got were strange noises.

"Well, I guess this one is up to me." William said, looking back down at Odd. "Let's hope I can figure this out, for your sake."

—

"Everyone, stay calm!" Jim yelled, attempting to stop the outcry of fear and horror coming from the children. "We are doing everything we can. Our drivers have all agreed that we have a pretty good chance of making it back to campus before the river floods over, so just relax and enjoy the ride."

"Some comfort." Ulrich whispered to Yumi as Jim sat back down. Ulrich turned to Jeremy who sat with Aelita to his left on the other isle and asked, "Jeremy, you really think this could be X.A.N.A.?"

"I'm positive. A storm like this doesn't just pop up, it has to develop. In a couple of hours all of France started flooding from a storm that wasn't supposed to happen, that has X.A.N.A. written all over it." He said, looking down at his now dying phone. "And I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get through to William and Odd again."

"How are we going to get to the factory?" Yumi asked, leaning forward so she could see past Ulrich. "Aelita has to deactivate the tower, without her them being there won't help."

"I still haven't figured that one out. The sewers will be flooded, so we can't go that way." Jeremy said, looking hopelessly at his shoes. "And odds are the water will get so high it will flood the factory, leaving us with no way to stop this."

Jim stood up from his seat, his eyes perplexed and full of fear as he watched a torrent of water come rushing towards the bus at an alarm rate.

"Everybody get down, now!"

—

Odd looked out, seeing a faint light in his mind. He slowly moved closer to it, the light growing brighter and brighter as he approached it. His mind was as peaceful as his body, all he could focus on was the light in front of him. Soon his while field of view was encompassed by the light, the center as white as he could imagine and then it seemed even more, something that enchanted his mind.

As he reached what he guessed was the end of the light, the point where he could no longer move forward, he reached an arm out, a great desire to pass through the light coming over him, moving him towards it.

Then, abruptly, the area he was in began to distort, his body moving away from the light. His outstretched arm moved further, the desire still with him, until he heard a peculiar noise. It was a faint voice, growing stronger as he strained his ears to listen.

"Odd." He heard. "Odd." His name was repeated as he grew so far from the light that all was beginning to darken.

"Odd." This was noticeably louder than before, allowing him to clearly hear it. "Odd!" The voice now yelled, as Odd fell to his knees, unable to see in the utter darkness.

"Open your eyes." The voice said. "Open your eyes." Odd did as commanded, and slowly opened his eyes. Above him he could make out a figure, shadowy as it was, and a roaring noise raged on all around him, his ears feeling extremely sensitive for reasons he didn't understand.

"Odd!" William yelled as he witnessed the miracle he just witnessed. Odd's eyes had opened slightly, as did his mouth. "You're awake!"

Odd at first was unresponsive, unsure what was happening. He began to remember, the recent last hitting him in pieces, his mind taking the time to sort them as though they were forming a puzzle.

"William..." Odd murmured, his head tilting up slightly. As he lifted his head, a thick sheet of rain brushed across his face, the wind feeling as fire on his face.

"Odd, we gotta get inside." William said, pointing behind him. Odd peeked his head further up to see the factory behind him. "Jeremy said that this freak storm could be caused by X.A.N.A., we need to get to Lyoko." William said, helping Odd up.

"Hold on a second... What happened?" Odd asked, rubbing his throbbing head.

"You were blown down and landed on your head. You've been knocked out for at least thirty minutes if not longer. I had to carry you to the factory, but that's enough explaining, let's get inside." William said, helping Odd walk into the factory.

"Where are the others?" Odd asked, limping slowly as William carried most of his weight.

"I have no idea. Last I heard they were still on the buses, but who knows what might have happened out there." William took a moment to pause, looking out at the storm which covered the sky, as though it were a blanket, it's only job to smother all life that find itself below it. And it was doing its job well.

Hey, here's some news: I like where this episode is going, so I decided to make this a mid-series special episode. So this episode will have another chapter, making it longer than any other episode before it. Enjoy the suspense (:


	25. Don't Rock the Boat!

Ulrich turned his head towards Jim who had moments earlier yelled, sitting on the floor holding his seat. He then turned to face where Jim's eyes, full of fear, were looking. Ulrich's body froze with fear, the water rushing towards them at an unforgiving rate.

"Get down!" He yelled, grabbing Yumi, holding her tightly to his chest. Jeremy noticed the growing distress on the bus and followed Ulrich's lead, protecting Aelita as well as he could.

The wave slammed into the bus with a fury marching that of a rabid beast, slamming into its pray with a force nothing can stop. The driver had moments ago slammed the brakes, causing the bus to initially hold up to the wave, but quickly it's torrential outpour of energy broke through that layer of protection, flipping the bus on its side, sending kids falling onto their sides. The wave had similar effects on the other buses, causing them to violently shake and turn as they flopped in the current of the river.

Ulrich looked around him, the bus seeming stable enough for him to stand.

"Yumi, you okay?" He asked, looking her over for cuts or hits.

"I'm fine. My arm's a little sore, but I think it'll be fine." She replied, moving off her back from where she had fallen.

Ulrich looked around, trying to comprehend what had just happened. As he looked over to his right, he heard a voice call his name.

"Ulrich!" Jeremy yelled, standing up from where he had fallen. "I think we have a problem!"

Ulrich move over to Jeremy, having to jump over a seat to get to him. "What is it?" Ulrich asked looking at the blond frantically search the ground.

"Two things. First: I lost my glasses, meaning I can't see. Second: the bus is filling with water, very rapidly." Jeremy pointed to the back side of the bus, water just now causing a slight tilt onto that side.

"That is a problem..." Ulrich said, his mind trailing off as he looked over the chaos of the overturned bus. "Is everyone okay?" Ulrich asked, his voice not as loud as a yell, but loud enough for everyone to hear. The replies were mixed, some said they were okay while others had mixed injuries, although none of them were severe.

"Jeremy, what's your plan?" Aelita asked, joining many in just now getting up.

"I'm not sure..." Jeremy looked down at the ground more, him mind tinkering as though he had actual gears turning in his head. After a few moments, he yelled out, "I got it!"

"What?" Ulrich asked, looking over at the genius.

"The low-lying geography of the area should match us up at the quickest path back into a river connection." Jeremy said, giving up the futile search for his glasses.

"So, what does that mean?" Yumi asked, standing behind Ulrich.

"It means that we may cross paths with the Factory as we travel along the river, allowing us to get to Lyoko!" Jeremy said loudly, attracting the attention of others around him.

"Jeremy, how will we know when we get there?" Aelita asked, brushing something out of her hair.

"Hmm... That is a problem." Jeremy said, taking another moment to think. "Maybe if we get someone on top of the bus, they could tell us when we reach the factory."

"Yeah!" Yumi said, looking above her. "We can have someone go out the emergency window exit above us."

"Sounds like a plan." Ulrich said, joining Yumi in looking at the window above them. "I'll do it."

—

"William! We got a breach over here!" Odd yelled, pushing a large piece of wood against a newly formed opening in a wall of the factory.

"One second!" William yelled, running over to help Odd tape up the wood.

"These things won't hold the water forever, the tape is too weak!" Odd yelled, his entire body weight pushing, trying to hold the water at bay.

"I know, but hopefully it will hold until the others get here." William said, now helping Odd push.

"Who said the others are even coming? With how bad it is out there, I'm not sure how they plan on getting here." Odd said, firmly taping the wood in as many places as possible, backing away when he felt it was enough.

"Maybe we should go to Lyoko." William said, looking over the dozens of planks and boards they had taped to the walls in the last few minutes. His handiwork gave him a sense of pride, but it didn't last long as he was again pulled into conversation.

"What if the whole building floods? What if we get on Lyoko and the supercomputer gets fried or something? Then what?" Odd said, grabbing his head as it again began throbbing.

"You okay?" William asked, walking over to Odd.

"Yeah, I'm fine... Just give me a minute." Odd said, pressing his body against the wall as he clenched to his head, the pain growing worse.

"You sure?" William asked, looking at Odd with concern, distracted from what was beginning to occur behind him.

"Yeah, I'll me fine..." Odd said, a loud *bang* interrupting his train of thought.

William turned to see a mass of concrete, steel and cinderblock fall to the ground as a rushing wall of water took it's place, pushing the whole to become even wider.

William ran to the hole, grabbing the largest piece of wood they had found, and began to fight the mighty water. His body was able to put the wood in place, but he was hardly able to hold it their.

"Odd, come here and help me!" William yelled, his spine popping as it began to give in. Odd ran as fast as he could, but he slipped on a small puddle that had formed from some of the water that had made its way in. Odd luckily caught himself before he hit the ground, avoiding further disaster, and began to run towards William again.

"Odd, grab the tape and seal this thing!" William yelled, his body surpassing its breaking point, any more force would break his back.

Odd grabbed the tape and began to rip large pieces off, pushing them against the wood as he also helped William hold it in place, small squirts of water getting in every few seconds. After a couple minutes of this, Odd had used the whole roll of tape. When William moved from the board, it wobbled slightly, but stayed in place.

"I doubt that will last." William said, looking around the building, pieces falling as it lay in shambles.

"I doubt we will last." Odd said, looking at William's face with a deep concern.

Thanks for all the views, Saturday was my top view day ever! Another chapter for this episode will come out in, so think of this as a 6 chapter special episode. Enjoy the suspense!


	26. Breaking and Entering

Ulrich stands atop the sideways bus as it moves with the current, its strength growing ever more present. He wobbled as a heavy burst hit the bus, lunging it forward. The water below was murky, filled with random objects picked up by the unforgiving beast.

Ulrich fell as an even larger wave hit the bus, water even splashing up to him. He began to slide on the wet and curved metal of the bus, his only lifeline being the open emergency window which he held so desperately onto.

"Ulrich!" A voice, Ulrich guessed Yumi, yelled up to him through the opening. "You okay?"

Ulrich stood up, his balance regained after the waters temporarily settled. "I'm fine, just a bit sea sick." Ulrich joked, laughter returning from below.

"Okay, just make sure to keep an eye out for the factory!" Another voice yelled up, but Ulrich couldn't tell whom it belonged to.

Ulrich returned to his post, occasional splashes hitting, every now and again larger impacts, but he held on. Minutes quickly turned to hours, the slow yet steady flow of water into the bus was beginning to become noticeable, everyone now being forced to sit on sideways seats.

After what Ulrich could only guess had been a trip through the whole outskirts of the city, a beacon of hope was found shining in the water, Ulrich's eyes filling themselves with its image.

"Guys!" Ulrich yelled, his whole head going through the opening. "I can see the factory! We're heading right for it!"

The others were astounded, Jeremy feeling proud of himself for having the idea, but not in a big-headed or self-centered sense, rather one of acceptance that he had done a good job, building his slightly broken confidence in himself.

They discussed plans for getting in, most of them either impossible or extremely difficult. As they neared the factory, they knew it was now or never, and Ulrich began helping his friends into the top of the bus.

Jim walked over to them, the water filling his shoes and soaking his socks. "What do you think you're doing?" He asked, his voice stern, the voice of a commander questioning his cadets.

"We're just going out for some fresh air, Jim." Yumi said, helping Aelita join Ulrich and Jeremy who were already on top of the bus.

"Likely story. Whatever the case, this is an emergency situation, that means we all stay together." Jim said, moving closer, reaching out to help Aelita down.

"Jim, I'm sorry but we have to go, trust me, this will all be over soon." Yumi negotiated, although Jim would have nothing of her treaty.

"We don't have time to argue, now all of you back in this bus immediatly!" Jim commanded, beginning to pull Aelita down, not harmfully, but certainly not gently.

Yumi acted quickly, knowing him important it was for them to get to Lyoko. She used a move Ulrich taught her days earlier during one of their Pencak Silat sessions, her leg raised to kick Jim square in his chin, sending him a few inches in the air before he fell, a student attempting to catch him, only slowing his eventual fall into the water. Yumi made sure to kick him hard enough to put him on the ground, but not enough to hurt him too much.

"Sorry, Jimbo, I'll make it up to you later!" Yumi yelled as Ulrich helped her up, Aelita having gotten through during the incident.

As the children neared their exit, they all braced themselves to jump. As the bus floated over the now covered bridge, the kids jumped off the back, landing in the rivers current. It was now a fight against nature, X.A.N.A. Controlling nature that is.

"So, how are we gonna get in?" Aelita asked, her body working hard to fight the relentless current.

—

William and Odd lie seated against a large board, water squirting out all side. Their reserves of tape had run out long ago, leaving them with brute force. Other holes were open in the wall, they just lacked the ability to deal with them. Odd's headache grew worse again, his medication finally having worn off just an hour ago.

"William," Odd said through grinding teeth, caused by both the pain of the board against his back and his head which now felt as though it had a continually spinning blade inside, "I don't know how much longer we can keep this up."

William looked over at his friend, his dismay and pain openly apparent. "We can't think like that, we have to stay optimistic." William said, seconds later forced to again push against the board which was beginning to crack through the middle.

"What do you think's gonna happen? Do you think some miracle is just gonna fall from the sky?" Odd said, his eyes rolling at William's comment, any trace of his normally upbeat attitude erased by his current situation.

As if on cue, the window above them broke, water bursting through. Riding along the water Odd saw four figures, one after another, enter the factory.

"What was that?" William said, looking over at the shadowy figures, the lights in the building dimmed as the majority of the sun's rays were blocked by clouds.

Ulrich walked over to them, the others behind him. He ran over towards them once he realized they were okay, making it easily apparent to them who had just broken in.

"Ulrich! Guys!" Odd yelled, looking at his soaked friends come towards him, their paces brisk but also not a run, the floor too wet for a successful sprint.

"Odd! William! You guys are okay!" Ulrich yelled, finally arriving at his destination.

"It's great to see you guys." Odd said, his head producing a violent stab, the pain overwhelming him for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to have any aspirin, would you?" Odd said, his hand moving to his head.

"I think we could all use some after today, but no, we don't have any." Yumi said, the three others having caught up with Ulrich.

"Well," William said, relaxing his back slightly as Ulrich joined them in their fight against the water, "what's the plan?"

"We go to Lyoko and beat X.A.N.A., same as always." Aelita said, looking around the factory. "And by the looks of this place, we better hurry before it floods completely."

"Good plan," Jeremy said, joining her in examining the room, "we should hurry. The supercomputer core should be protected from the water, if I made sure to seal it well last time I went down there, but the other parts of the lab will be vulnerable to flooding, so we need to get a return to the past ASAP."

The others nodded in agreement, and soon all were headed for the elevator, the hole Odd and William had worked so hard to close finally burst with the pressurized water it contained, the factory quickly filling.

Only time will tell just how long our warriors have.

Thanks for all the support! Over 2100 views! Good job guys, I appreciate it. Just to inform the public, I plan on having this episode go one chapter longer (I know, it's a long episode, but I love it.) and a total of 13 episodes in total, this being a mid-season special for all the diligent viewers. Thanks again for all the support! Post reviews on comments or questions.


	27. When the Snow Clears

William looked up at the window the four others had just entered from, his mind finally making the connection of what this would mean.

"Guys!" William said, his expression loud as he ran to catch up to the others, his thoughts having made him pause for a few moments earlier. "When the water gets higher, more water is gonna come through that window. Not to mention the hole Odd and I couldn't block from earlier."

Jeremy looked back at the opening, the others following suit. "I already considered that. The room storing the supercomputer should be fine, the top is sealed and the elevator doors should keep most of the water out. I am worried about the lab though, it's not as tightly secured and will probably already have some water leakage." Jeremy's mind had honestly been full of concerns since this incident began, but he tried hard to keep them below the surface, attempting to look calm and collected.

"All the more reason to get to Lyoko and crush X.A.N.A. quickly." Yumi said, looking the group over. Her words inspired a sense of confidence in the other Warriors, causing a telepathic agreement between them. They all walked to the elevator, the elevator shaft already beginning to fill with water, and without speaking, instilled a strong bond between them all. In their minds, they all thought the same thing, 'We've made it this far, we can't give up now.'

—

"Scanner Odd, scanner Ulrich, scanner Yumi."

"Transfer Odd, transfer Ulrich, transfer Yumi."

"Virtualization."

The three Warriors joined William and Aelita who had already been virtualized, landing with a hard thud. The heavy snow fell over the Ice Sector, a mysterious occurrence.

"Jeremy, what's with the blizzard?" Odd asked, placing his hand out from his body, unable to see it.

"I guess X.A.N.A. just feels like manipulating weather today. Be carful, the snow will make it hard to see, so monsters can easily sneak up on you." Jeremy said, sitting in his usual seat, the floor of the lab shimmering, a light film of water silently growing.

"Okay, how about our vehicles?" William asked, welding his heavy sword with both hands.

"On their way." Jeremy replied, typing rapidly, his skills easily displayed, able to type almost a couple hundred words a minute, if he gets the right words.

The vehicles virtualized, each Warrior hooping aboard their respective ride, Aelita using her wings to fly through this incredibly disabling storm.

"The tower should be due south of you, but be carful, I see monsters on my screen." Jeremy warned, looking over some data.

Just as he finished speaking, lasers filled the virtual sky, the white of snow penetrated by the bright red beams of energy. The warriors did their best to avoid impact, William swerving violently until his Override was hit twice on the side sending him free falling. Ulrich and Odd were brought down together, Ulrich being hit and then swerving into Odd, knocking both boys off and into the hard frozen ground below. Yumi was hit directly, causing a loss of life-points and her to fall from her vehicle, meeting a similar fate as the others.

Aelita, noticing her friends fall faster than flies, landed of her own will to regroup with them. "You guys okay?" She asked, her wings retracting.

"Fine, Princess." Odd said, looking over the situation, rubbing the back of his head. "How are we gonna fight an enemy we can't see?" He asked, the others not entirely sure they had an answer.

"Guys, I hate to rush you, but soon the lab will be a lake." Jeremy said, water now reaching his ankles and rising quickly.

"Well, we would fight," Odd said, looking up at the sky, "but X.A.N.A. is so weak that he has to cheat to win!"

As if X.A.N.A. were accepting the challenge, the heavy snowfall began to dissipate, eventually clearing.

The gang looked at their surroundings, jaws dropped at the sheer number of enemies that were currently surrounded them. Forming a circle around them was an assorted group of dozens of monsters, Crabs, Bloks, Hornets, Tarantulas and Megatanks. The air was tense, the monsters eying down the Warriors as if they were taunting them, warning them of what's to come.

"Guys, I see a lot of monsters on my screen, keep an eye out." Jeremy said, not knowing what was already taking place on Lyoko.

"Thanks for the early warning, Einstein." Ulrich said, drawing his swords from their holsters.

"Okay, what's the plan?" Yumi asked, the group now falling into a defensive circular position.

"Well, there's about 100 of them and 5 of us, that means we each get 20." Aelita said, reactivating her wings.

The gang prepared themselves, Aelita building a partial ice wall around certain parts of their circle for cover, leaving enough room for them to attack from the inside or go our, but still making it harder on the monsters. Odd loaded a laser arrow, preparing to fire at will. Ulrich triplicated himself, his two copies following suit in his defensive position. Yumi pulled out her fans, planning to use one as a shield and the other as a weapon. Finally, William held his sword ready for a fight, his knees bent and prepared to leap upon weak enemies.

"On my mark!" Ulrich yelled, holding one sword in the air. "Three... Two... One... Charge!"

The fight was on, Ulrich and his copies moving on the Crabs, William for the Bloks. Odd, Yumi and Aelita stayed inside the shelter, using their range as a way to take out open targets from cover.

The monsters retaliated, lasers sent flying everywhere. The scene below seemed as though it was from a war movie, a heated battle between the two best armies in the world, a seemingly endless fight.

A group of Hornets attempted to poison the shelter with their acid, but were taken out by a multitude of killer shots from Odd that would make Annie Oakley jealous. William made short work of the Bloks, dodging all of their strategic shots and formations until their only lay a thin dust of code from their remnants. Ulrich lost both of his clones almost instantly, but proved his power by taking out all ten of the Crabs in no time, his swords almost seeming bright from the friction of his cuts. Aelita and Yumi worked together on the Tarantulas, them taking turns distracting them while the other destroyed them.

The Megatanks were a team effort, Ulrich using his supersprint to destroy the first couple before the fired, dodging the shots of the others. Odd took out two as well, leaving only five for the others. William used his supersmoke to get behind three of them clustered in a triangle, spinning quickly with his sword extended to destroy them. Yumi and Aelita used a similar tactic as they did before to destroy the remaining Megatanks, leaving no monsters left.

An eerie silence full upon the group, the battle won and the world about to be saved again by the great Lyoko Warriors.

"Okay Aelita, deactivate the tower and we can get outta here." Jeremy said, water now nearly on the seat of his chair.

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

"...Guys... Is that what I think it is?" Odd said, his spine shivering in fear as he looked over his shoulder towards the vibrations.

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

Hope you guys enjoy! One more chapter to this special episode, and I hope it meets your desires. Read and review!


	28. They All Fall Down

Jeremy, who now had water in his chair, his pants dampened, looked at his monitor with a dropped jaw, a large red shape appearing.

"Guys, I think we have a big problem!" Jeremy said, looking through some files and running a couple of programs. "It looks like X.A.N.A. is using replicas to spawn a Kolossus!"

"That's old news, Jeremy!" Odd yelled, looking up at the beast as I drew closer to them, stepping it's legs out of the waters of the Ice Sector.

"Jeremy, Vehicles?" Ulrich requested, the Kolossus just a few steps from them as they ran.

"I'm having a lot of trouble on my end, a lot of the keys on my keyboard got wet a second ago, I can't type anything." Jeremy said, frantically pushing at random keys as he stood on his chair, unable to stay seated with the rapid water level rise.

The large monster shook the ground with every step, it's pace faster than that of the Warriors, it's speed greatly increased to match X.A.N.A.'s increased strength.

"Guys, what do we do?" William asked as Odd fired a few shots into the Kolossus's eyes, having no effect.

"Well, running won't work forever." Yumi replied, the creature nearly upon them.

Ulrich turned to face the Kolossus, saying, "Then we fight."

With one swift swing of its arm, the Kolossus aimed for the Warriors, clipping Odd, sending the purple cat flying through the air as he devirtualized.

Yumi threw her fan at the beast, it impacted in his arm, incinerating it on impact as though it were paper to fire. Aelita activated her wings, and, upon flight, fired multiple shots at the monster. Her shots had as little effect as Odd and Yumi had earlier.

"Yumi! Watch out!" Aelita yelled from her vantage point, the Kolossus swinging it's arm at the girl as she began to throw her second sword. The impact was more of a slam than a slash, her being crushed and devirtualized on impact.

Two down, three to go.

—

Odd stepped out of his scanner, water filling the lower half of it after the doors slid open. He was unsure what do to, water already filling a lot of the room, more pouring in every second.

He swam over to the middle of the room and went for the ladder, attempting to go to the lab and find Jeremy, but it was so slick and so much water was pushing through he was unable to get a firm grip. Just as he gave up on his efforts, he noticed another scanner door open, a confused Yumi emerging, unprepared for the wet situation that awaited her.

"Hey, how did the fight go?" Odd asked. If any sarcasm existed at this time, it was in his voice.

"I don't know, I was a bit too focused on the hand slamming into me to see how the others were doing." Yumi replied, matching his earlier expression of sarcasm.

The two floated for a few moments before one finally broke the silence.

"So... What do we do now?" Odd asked, his arms paddling to keep himself from sinking.

"I don't know. I guess we should try to get to Jeremy." Yumi replied, looking around the room and clues as to how they could do that.

"Well, how are we gonna get there?" Odd asked, his body already getting slightly tired from his swimming.

"I have no idea." Yumi replied, her mind wondering over ideas of how they can escape.

—

"Aelita, head for the tower! William and I can handle this jerk!" Ulrich yelled, his main priority to save the people back on earth, and Yumi for that matter. The tower was all that concerned him now, and he would fight hard to get it deactivated.

Aelita flew off towards the tower which was a fair distance away, Ulrich and William standing next to each other as they eyed down the beast.

"What's the plan?" William asked, hoping Ulrich had a few good ideas.

"We each go for an eye, I'll get the one on its head, you go for the sword. If we hit them both, it's gone." Ulrich explained, proud of his idea.

"Okay, now how am I supposed to get on it's arm?" William asked, the Kolossus preparing for a swing.

"It swings, you jump. Good luck!" Ulrich said, running off from William in a supersprint, beginning to climb the back of the beast.

William waited for the monster to swing at him, a move which he cleverly dodged, jumping onto its hand. He began to run towards its eye as Ulrich reached the one on its head. William slipped as the beast moved it's arm violently, causing him to drop his sword.

In panic, William reached out, but to no avail, his sword hitting the ground with a wicked *Clang* noise.

"Ulrich! I dropped my sword!" William yelled up to his friend, unsure how to deal with this situation.

Ulrich looked down at William, holding both his swords in hand. This brought an idea to his head, quickly throwing the sword from his right hand as he yelled: "Catch!"

William watched as the blade twirled in the air as it traveled the half-span of the Kolossus, reaching his arm out as it neared him. His hand barely caught it as it was passing by, the force behind it much stronger than its graceful fall would have suggested.

"I got it!" William yelled, holding the sword in the air for Ulrich to see.

"Okay, on my mark we kill it!" Ulrich said, raising his sword. "Three!... "Two!... "One!" He yelled, thrusting the sharp blade deep into the monsters face, William also stabbing it with a similar force.

The Kolossus shook violently as it began a screech that would break glass, not by pitch, but by sheer volume. It's weight lost hold as it began to fall, both Warriors still hanging onto it. The impact onto the ground beat their best efforts to run, both boys being devirtualized, leaving a flat lying Kolossus behind.

Aelita stepped into the tower as water began to totally fill the lab, the young blond gasping for air as his mouth was mostly covered. Yumi and Odd had similar issues, their efforts to find Jeremy now just seen as a waste of energy.

Aelita floated to the second floor of the tower, her body moving gracefully as she flipped in the air. When she landed, she placed her hand on the terminal in front of her, causing it to display: "Aelita" "Code: Lyoko". When it finished, Aelita whispered to herself, "Jeremy, please tell my you pre-programmed the return to the past.

A few seconds passed, causing Aelita to begin to think otherwise, until she was hit with the large white sphere, sending them back before anything happened.

—

The whole gang sat in Jeremy's room, Jeremy sitting in his chair with a laptop in hand.

"Jeremy, how could X.A.N.A. have replicas still? We destroyed all of them when we killed him the first time, right?" Aelita asked, unsure what to make of. X.A.N.A.'s recent growth in strength.

"I'm not sure how he did it, but he still has his replicas, only adding to his strength." Jeremy said, looking at his worried friends. "But don't worry, guys, we've destroyed replicas in the past, so well just do it again."

Odd raised his hand, looking over at Jeremy. "Speaking of tough challenges, I have a math test tomorrow and I don't even know what chapter it's in. Wanna help?"

The room burst into laughter, their bonds constantly growing stronger. It was times like these, the challenges, the trials, these were the times that brought them together, that truly made them a family.

I hope you guys liked this special episode, I put a lot of work into it. Read and review! Oh, and PM any ideas or things you would like to see, thanks!


	29. Episode 7 Nightmare-Angelic

Jeremy stood on a large mesa, the ground below him tan and rusted. A vast expanse of land was covered on a large sandstorm, leaving him with limited visibility.

Jeremy attempted to move, but found himself unable to feel any part of his body, as though he was left helpless, his brain unable to command his body. For what felt like hours he stood their, unsure what to make of the situation. He could understand what was going on around him, but he was left unable to develop any thought, his mind in a constant sense of emptiness, lacking the ability to think.

After this time, the storm cleared, leaving behind a clear sky. The day was bright, but Jeremy couldn't see the Sun in the sky from his angle. In the distance, Jeremy peered out to see a figure, this figure shining with a bright light around its outline.

The angelically lot figure turned to face Jeremy, the boy instantly recognizing who stood before him. 'Aelita' he thought, the only conscious thought his mind had produced during this while ordeal. Aelita looked at Jeremy directly in the eyes, something he could notice even from their great distance. Her face gleamed with a shimmering light, a prominent smile openly apparent on her face.

Aelita began walking towards Jeremy, slowly making her way closer. Her pace increased as she walked, her smile growing brighter as she drew closer to her love. Jeremy's thoughts continued even thought his body stay immobilized. 'Aelita' 'Aelita'.

Aelita stopped dead in her tracks a mere ten feet in front of Jeremy, all light fading from her body as her head turned away from Jeremy. A dark, shadowy figure entered Jeremy's line of sight, it's body ripped at the bottom, it's face nonexistent. It walked towards Aelita, it's pace slow yet sinister, it's body moving in such a way that would frighten even the bravest of men.

As it reached Aelita, her body appeared to freeze in fear. The creature reached for the girl, causing her to scream. "Jeremy, help me!"

Jeremy was unable to move still, his will power unable to break the invisible chains that somehow paralyzed him. He was only able to watch, watch as the beastly figure grabbed Aelita, watch as it placed her above its head, watch as it threw her off the edge of the mesa.

"Jeremy!" He heard, Aelita's voice echoing from below as she fell. All Jeremy could think in his mind was just one word, one thought, the only thought his body would allow: Aelita.

—

Jeremy sprang out of bed, a loud yell coming from his mouth. "Aelita!" He yelled, his mind still working out what had just happened. He looked around his room, his clock reading 2:30 in bright red pixels, his body beginning to relax. His breathing began to slow as he stood in his room for over a minute, thinking of what he had just dreamt.

He then considered how early it was, the tiredness hitting him like a brick wall. He decided to just think about it later, his body forcing him to go back to sleep. As he lie in bed, his thoughts all focused on Aelita until he fell into a deeply troubled sleep.

—

"What do you mean I can't get seconds anymore?" Odd groaned, his stomach singing a similar tune of disapproval and hunger.

"I already told ya, the cafeteria had a budget cut, I can't just give you extra because someone else isn't gonna eat." Rosa said, her stern voice falling upon the hungry child like a cold bucket of water.

"Fine..." Odd slurred, his annoyance overly apparent. "I'll have the bacon and toast."

Odd was handed his food, the bacon undercooked and the toast burnt to the point of it almost being passable as charcoal. 'Can this get any worse?' Odd thought as he walked over to his friends who had already securely selected their seating.

"Odd, what took you so long?" Ulrich asked as Odd took a seat next to him.

"Apparently budget cuts are keeping me away from the good food my stomach so desperately needs." Odd said, his arms crossed.

"It can't be that bad, at least your bacon looks like it's been cooked. I think mine is really cold ham." Aelita said, causing the group to laugh, other than Jeremy who sat quietly, picking at the golden scrambled eggs with his spork.

Aelita noticed her boyfriends lack of laughter and looked towards him with curiosity. "What's wrong, Jeremy?"

Jeremy looked up from his eggs, his mind still existing in another place. "It's nothing, I just didn't sleep well."

"You sure, you seem a little down?" William asked, concerned for his friend.

"I said I'm fine, okay?" Jeremy said in a louder tone, annoyed with all the questioning, not wanting to deal with it.

"Jeremy, calm down, we're only concerned for you." Yumi said, looking at the blond from across the table.

Jeremy abruptly stood up and roughly slammed his chair back into the table. "Right now I don't need your concern, just... Just leave me alone." He said, walking out of the cafeteria.

—

Jeremy sits in his chair, his fingers typing frantically at the keyboard. He had felt so stressed from his dream, he didn't mean to act like that around the others, but he just didn't feel the same. His mind continued to drift as he typed random codes that did nothing useful, until a knock fell upon his door.

"Come in." He said, unsure who the mysterious guest could be.

Aelita opened the door, a face of concern plastered over her usually upbeat personality. "Jeremy, what's wrong?" She asked, her voice soft and comforting to Jeremy.

"I just... I'm sorry for how I acted earlier, I'm just tired and confused right now." He answered, turning to face Aelita.

"Why didn't you get much sleep last night? Were you up programming again?" Aelita asked.

"No, no. I just... I had a bad dream and I'm not sure what to think about it." Jeremy said, his voice growing softer as he became more comfortable talking about it.

"Don't worry so much, Jeremy, it was just a dream. Now come on, were about to be late for math." Aelita said, beginning to walk out his door, signaling him to follow.

"Yeah." Jeremy said as he began walking out the door, his voice only loud enough for him to hear. "Just a dream."

Thanks for all the reviews and follows, it really means a lot to me. PM me any ideas and if it's good enough I just may use it an leave your username in the my note at the end of the story! Read and review.


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